Bard of Morning's Hope
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. The Bard of Morning's Hope is a seemingly unstoppable serial killer striking at Death Eaters and former Slytherins. After Lucius Malfoy's violent death, Harry Potter is assigned to protect the remaining Malfoys.
1. Ice Crystals

**Title: **Bard of Morning's Hope

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa

**Warnings: **Minor character death, violence, angst, gore

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **The Bard of Morning's Hope is a seemingly unstoppable murderer stalking former Death Eaters and former Slytherins, enacting vengeance on them in an untraceable way. In the wake of Lucius Malfoy's savage death, Harry Potter becomes the Auror assigned to guard Draco and Narcissa Malfoy from a similar fate.

**Author's Notes: **This is based on a prompt by Kain, who requested, among several other things, Harry being hired to guard Draco and Narcissa from a killer who was murdering Death Eaters in revenge, Harry having a good relationship with the Weasleys, and a slow-burn romance between Harry and Draco. This story should be somewhere between twelve and twenty chapters, and will be updated every Saturday.

**The Bard of Morning's Hope**

_Chapter One-Ice Crystals_

Draco was proud of himself for retaining control when the Aurors asked him through the fireplace what had happened to his father. There were no words for the horror he'd felt on stepping into his father's bedroom and seeing Lucius Malfoy lying on his bed, turned to ice, and then seeing the ice melt the instant he touched it with his hand. His father would have no burial, no true funeral. His essence had soaked into the sheets of his great bed, the bed where his mother had slept soundly beside his father for decades, and he would never return.

But the impatient Auror asking for details wouldn't want to hear about that, and Draco managed to speak calmly.

"Your father is a victim of the Bard of Morning's Hope?" The attending Auror darted his eyes back and forth from the parchment he held to Draco with an air of someone who had other matters to attend to.

"Yes," said Draco.

"Are you sure?"

Draco clenched his hands. "As sure as I can be when I saw that bloody title emblazoned on the wall with ice," he said sharply. He'd seen it the minute he turned around from his father's melting body, and immediately cast a Preservation Charm on it so that it wouldn't melt in the heat of the fireplace beneath it.

If he'd thought to do that when he walked into the room, if he'd thought to do that before he touched his father, maybe Lucius would still be alive. Or not alive, but capable of restoration.

_Just what I needed. A new nightmare._

"Yes, that does narrow it down," said the inane Auror, still scribbling furiously. "What was the method of killing?"

"He was turned into an ice statue, and he melted into the bed the minute I touched him," said Draco baldly.

That at least made the Auror's hands tremble a little, and while his eyes were incredulous when they locked on Draco again, he was paying attention now instead of thinking about something else. "Ice statues don't usually melt, they usually shatter when they're tipped over, but otherwise, the wizard can still be recovered-"

"I know that." Draco shut his eyes, but he did feel part of him unclench. That was true. He knew the spell for turning someone into ice, because Death Eaters had used it during the war, and the magic used was supernaturally cold. It wouldn't have melted at the mere touch of a hand, and so Draco wasn't the one responsible for his father's ultimate dissolution.

"So this must have been a different kind of ice statue?"

That was a new voice, and Draco opened his eyes and leaned in. Harry Potter was standing beside the first, incompetent Auror, his voice steady and his gaze locked on Draco's face as if he could see every secret hidden in Draco's mind.

_It's good for him, then, isn't it, that I don't have any secrets left after the war, _Draco thought in irritation, and nodded. "Yes, Potter, it was. However did you figure it out?"

Potter ignored him and turned back to the Auror who had taken the notes. "Get Grimstone. And Adbar. And alert Minister Shacklebolt."

The other Auror bowed and took off, which made Draco sniff. Potter turned a professional face back to him, though, and Draco reckoned he could put up with this idiocy a bit if it meant he would get justice for his father. No one had accused Potter of failing to solve cases or capture the criminals. Draco was a bit surprised they hadn't put him on the case of the Bard of Morning's Hope already.

"Can you tell me what you found?" Potter was drawing what looked like large lines down the center of the piece of parchment. Perhaps splitting it up into categories, Draco thought. At least Potter would probably be able to read his own notes later, which Draco couldn't have said for sure about the other idiot.

Draco nodded tensely and began to speak. "My mother got up early this morning to attend a party given by a friend of hers. I usually eat breakfast with my father, but he was late getting up. I finally went to wake him up. If he sleeps-slept-too late, he'll be angry for wasting the morning."

Draco heard the change in his own voice, and put his hand over his eyes. The sight of the ice statue finally whirled and diminished in his mind, replaced by something else: the fact that he would never see his father again, that he was _dead, _that Lucius had survived the war and his sentence in Azkaban only to have this happen.

"Malfoy? Are you all right?"

There was a tone of genuine compassion in Potter's voice. Until Draco heard it, he hadn't realized how badly he _needed _to hear it. Draco managed to raise his head and nod, although it felt as if his neck had a dozen creaking joints. "Yes. I am. I can describe what I saw to you. Just-give me a minute."

Potter waited, with an iron patience that supported Draco more than he had realized patience could support someone. He breathed in a few times, then drew his head back and nodded at Potter. Potter nodded in return, and began to ask questions that Draco could answer with an unwavering voice.

"Had your father received any threats from enemies recently?"

"No." Draco shook his head. "Not even a Howler. The last one came more than a year ago."

"Could he have received threats that he might not have shared with you or your mother?" Potter paused and looked up. "I'll need to interview her, too."

"Of course," Draco murmured, and then realized, when he saw Potter start to write down his words, that Potter had taken them as the answer to the wrong question. "No, I meant that of course you can interview my mother. I know that Father would have shared anything with me. He was much less secretive after the war," he added, when he saw Potter opening his mouth.

Potter considered him with shrewd eyes for a second, then nodded. "Your knowledge of your father takes precedence," he said, and went on to some other item on an invisible list. "One of the Bard's other victims had in fact received a package in the post shortly before his death, a portrait that no one else in the family knew he had commissioned. The portrait never came to life after he died, and then it went missing. Did your father receive anything else like that?"

Draco snorted. "No. He didn't-he didn't have a portrait of any kind made." He felt a moment's sheer, dizzy sickness overcome him. He had lost his last chance to talk to his father, the way he could to some of his ancestors. But he cleared his throat and continued. "He always said that no artist could capture the true lessons he had learned, and he wouldn't want to have any portion of his awareness return in a portrait unless it could know everything he had learned."

Potter gave a small smile, which didn't look mocking no matter how many times Draco studied it, and nodded. "All right, then. There's nothing else in the house that might have been a gift from a hostile enemy?"

Draco shook his head. "No. The Aurors still check his post, make sure that he's not writing to anyone they disapprove of." He lifted his aching head and squinted at Potter. "_You're _one, you should know."

"It's not a duty that I've ever been placed on," said Potter, and Draco controlled the surge of resentment making its way up his chest. Of _course _they wouldn't place the Great Harry Potter on a duty like that, in a position where he could have actually made a difference when it came to Draco's father. "But, all right. We don't think it was that." He made another note, and then stood. "I'll be over soon, Malfoy. Please don't touch anything in the room. There are clues that could be important, but only if they're left in exactly the right place."

"Too late," Draco sneered, and Potter looked alarmed. "I already cast a Preservation Charm on that bloody title the _Bard _is always leaving everywhere."

But now, Potter's eyes shone as they widened. "You did? That's great!" At Draco's stare, he explained, "We haven't seen any of the signatures in a physical state before. They always get incinerated or melt or tatter or blow away before we get there, depending on what material they're made of. We've had to rely on Pensieve memories. You've already done something that might help avenge your father, Malfoy."

Draco was still grappling with that praise when Potter looked him dead in the eye, and his voice softened. "And I know that I might not sound like it right now, with how professional I have to be, but I _am _sorry for your loss."

Draco started to lift a hand, started to shape a retort with his lips to ask what Potter could know about it, but then he stopped himself. If there was something Potter _did _know, it would be the loss of a parent.

"Thank you," he said a second later, because Potter was looking at him with a ridiculous curlicue of hair falling into his eyes and waiting for an answer, and the sooner Draco replied, the sooner Potter could be over here and making himself useful.

Potter inclined his head, and then turned and hurried away. Draco shut the Floo and sat back, his eyes shut. He wanted to sit there and do nothing, until the tears finally overflowed and he lost the impulse to kick and scream and break things.

But now that he wasn't speaking anymore, he could hear his mother weeping in the next room. She had to be blaming herself nearly as much as Draco. While Draco had thought his touch had melted his father, Narcissa had probably slept through at least part of the Bard's attack on Lucius. A ritual or spell that changed a wizard to ice, combined with the penetration of the wards, would have taken too long to start only after she'd left the bedroom.

Draco stood up and went to comfort his mother, his mind turning on some grim statistics. This Bard of Morning's Hope was responsible for ten murders now, including Lucius's: Crabbe's and Goyle's fathers, both Lestrange brothers, Fenrir Greyback, Theodore's father, Yaxley, Montagu, Lucius, and a Slytherin sixth-year Draco had never paid much attention to, but who had fought with the Death Eaters during the Battle of Hogwarts. The girl and Montagu had never been formally Marked. That made it seem as if the Bard wanted revenge on everyone who had fought on the Dark Lord's side.

And while _Draco _knew the depth of the loathing he'd felt for the Dark Lord by the end of the war, and how his mother had only done what she needed to keep her family alive, he doubted anyone else would know that. Especially not a crazed, murdering fanatic.

He had to wonder how long it was until his name, and his mother's, turned up in the papers, if this Bard-who struck through the strongest wards, inside locked rooms, through personal protective spells of any kind, and always without a struggle-couldn't be stopped.

* * *

><p>"I intend to take this one personally."<p>

Kingsley sat up a little and frowned at Harry. Harry frowned back. He knew that he would win any argument with Kingsley if he had one, but he preferred not to argue. He would prefer Kingsley acknowledge what was happening right in front of him.

"I see," said Kingsley. "And the dragon-egg smuggling case?"

Harry, his arm planted along the back of his chair and his body twisted to the side so that he could cross his legs, shook his head. "What about it?"

Kingsley sighed hard enough to make some of the people in the photographs on the walls look out at them. "You know very well that I counted on you to make some sort of difference in it, Harry."

Harry leaned forwards and tapped a finger on Kingsley's desk. No one else would have been able to get away with that kind of informality in front of the Minister, but then, no one else had the kind of old, tested bond with Kingsley that Harry did. "And _you _know very well that the Aurors have gathered all the evidence they need of who was doing the smuggling."

Kingsley shut his eyes and turned his head away. "It would cause a political firestorm to arrest Dennis Creevey right now," he muttered. "He's the Speaker of the Muggleborn Legion, and their position is delicate-"

"Strongly supported and delicate are not the same thing," Harry said, shaking his head. "And I know a few other people in the Muggleborn Legion who would be better choices for that Speaker position. Dennis is a fanatic. I understand why, and I respect his loss, but other people suffered losses in the war and didn't take up smuggling rare dragon eggs and possibly causing the extinction of a species."

Kingsley looked so unhappy that Harry decided more honesty about that subject at the moment wouldn't do any good. "Anyway. I think I can provide better protection to the Malfoys than a lot of the other Aurors could." He left unspoken, as well, his general opinion about his colleagues, which Kingsley knew all too well.

Kingsley gave him a steely gaze that told Harry he could hear the words anyway. "Even given your old rivalry with Draco Malfoy? You think you could provide unbiased protection?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Your time in politics is showing, Kingsley. It's not unbiased protection that's important. It's _effective _protection."

Kingsley leaned forwards, and he was in earnest now, if the direct look of his eyes was any indication. "I'm trying to protect you as much as anyone else, Harry. If something happened to the Malfoys while you were protecting them, you know some people would point to that rivalry and say-"

"Nothing is going to happen to them while I'm protecting them."

"You also know that this Bard can find his way past the strongest defenses, and there seems to be no way of stopping or slowing him down-"

"Right," said Harry, and he was the one who held Kingsley's attention this time. "His existence offends me. There _ought _not to be any case that we can't solve. We've failed to solve this one. People who ought to be arrested and tried by _us _if their prison sentences weren't enough justice for their crimes, or if they've never served one, are instead being executed by this bastard. I want to stop that."

Kingsley paused for a long moment, and then said, "All right. Yes. I can understand your point-of-view."

Harry smiled and stood up. "Fine. Then I'll go over and conduct the initial investigation of Lucius's room, and then I'll inform the Malfoys that I'm staying on to guard them. I think I might move them to Grimmauld Place. The Manor has already been proved vulnerable, and my wards have that little special something I've added to them-"

Kingsley lifted his hands and clamped them over his ears. "If you don't tell me about anything illegal, then I don't have to pay attention to it," he said, and began to hum.

Harry laughed, bowed to Kingsley, and went to find the right Auror partner to take with him to Malfoy Manor. He couldn't take Ron, much as he would have liked to. Not for this. Ron could handle some of the investigating, like the comparison of this murder to the others, out of Malfoy's sight. But he would raise the tension of the situation too much right now.

At least Harry knew he could count on Ron to do the investigation properly, if not to speak to the Malfoys without his temper getting the better of him. Some previous evidence in the Bard's cases had got "lost," and Harry didn't think it was the result of carelessness so much as political sympathies.

But Ron had matured a lot, and Harry trusted him not to let his dislike of Death Eaters influence the investigation, no matter how much he might have thought some of the Bard's victims deserved what had happened to them.

Harry lost his smile as he walked, and his eyes narrowed.

_I'm going to catch this bastard. He won't stop on his own. It's too obvious that he thinks he's right, and some people don't even _want _him stopped._

_But so far, he hasn't run into me._


	2. Blood On His Hands

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two-Blood On His Hands_

"This is the bedroom where it happened."

Draco fell back before the Aurors that Potter guided into the room, two of them with long red robes a slightly darker shade then normal-with black trim, Draco noticed a moment later-and a symbol on their chests that reminded Draco of the crossed bone-and-wand symbol of St. Mungo's. As the two Aurors began to cast careful spells on the bed and the icy announcement of the Bard's presence on the wall that Draco had preserved, Draco turned to Potter.

"Aurors Grimstone and Adbar are experts in a new kind of magic that we've been developing," Potter explained quietly, his eyes on the two Aurors. His gaze did return briefly to Draco's face, and stayed there for a calm moment before leaving again. Draco found that he was also breathing more quietly after that glance. "They can sense the traces of a magical signature that isn't the victim's own, blood other than the victim's, cloth the murderer may have dragged in from elsewhere-anything that shouldn't be here. But they need to separate the victim's from the murderer's magical signature first. It takes a bit."

"You're not in on this new magic?" Draco couldn't help the sneer in his voice. He was the only one who needed to know that he didn't mean it as much as usual. "I thought Harry Potter was always the first and the best at everything."

"Oh, no," said Potter, with a faint grin, as though to remind Draco that he hadn't forgotten their sparring any more than Draco had. "I'm good enough at bodyguard work and leadership that they wouldn't think of putting me anywhere else. Which is why I'll be taking over your defense."

Draco stared at him. Potter maintained the same expression, which was a triumph of sorts, and he turned to study Grimstone's and Adbar's experiments again. Draco looked, too, but all he could _see_ them doing was standing in front of the icy inscription of the Bard's name again and waving their wands gently back and forth like flower stems in a breeze.

"That had better not mean what it sounds like," Draco said out of the corner of his mouth. "The wards on the Manor-"

"Are inadequate," said Potter, his voice suddenly cooler. "The Bard defeated them. It's true that we don't know how he does that yet, but it does mean that you can't stay here. You _or _your mother."

"You think we're the next targets." Draco shifted uncomfortably. "But how can you know that? The Bard hasn't struck in any organized pattern." Even the Lestrange brothers had been killed separately, two victims apart from what Draco remembered, not right in a row.

"I think that you're targets, not necessarily the next ones," said Potter. "But I can defend you. I told you, I'm good at bodyguard work." Draco caught a glimpse of that grin again. "And we'll be moving to my house at Grimmauld Place, where you'll be behind wards I've strengthened with something extra."

"What something extra?" Draco demanded.

Potter smiled.

"I deserve to know, if I'm going to be behind them," Draco said, and lowered his voice savagely. "And my mother, too. Or have you forgotten that you owe her a life-debt?"

"Oh, of course not," said Potter. "I'll do my best to save her life. But I do think that's best done by acting as I would in any other case, not forcing her to invoke and claim the debt." He finally faced Draco. "And I can't explain what I added to my wards any more than I can explain Grimstone's and Adbar's work. This time, I do understand the magical theory, but you probably don't."

"Try me."

Potter nodded. "All right, then." Draco had to scramble mentally a moment to make sure that he was on his feet and ready for the lecture, since he hadn't expected Potter to give in, but Potter continued, "It has to do with the tension between the new moon and the dark of the sun."

"There is no dark of the sun," Draco promptly retorted.

"Then perhaps I should stop explaining right here," Potter retorted back.

Draco considered Potter's easy stance against the wall for a second, and then said, "All right. Then tell me what it is."

"It's the moment when the sun is the farthest away from a particular point on the earth," Potter explained. "When the solar energy is least." He grinned at the sight of Draco's puzzled expression, and Draco tried to smooth it away and appear impassive but interested enough that Potter wouldn't stop his lecture.

"It took a long time to set up," Potter said. "I had to cast part of the spell on the night of the new moon that was nearest the point when the sun would be farthest away, and then the other part of it when the dark of the sun arrived. Then I had to add extra spells that called upon the powers of darkness and cold."

Draco blinked, rapidly. "That sounds like Dark Arts."

"It's not," said Potter, and looked up as one of the other Aurors approached him. "Because no one studies astronomical magic anymore, and no one ever got around to forbidding it."

Draco watched through half-lidded eyes as the Auror, probably Grimstone, spoke with Potter in an undertone. It was true that Astronomy at Hogwarts was largely confined to recognizing constellations and planets, and sometimes predicting what influence they _could _have on magic. But no one ever seemed to actually use those rituals that were influenced by the rising of the full moon, or needed a precise point of sunset to work. Perhaps because they were too fussy and most wizards had easier methods of getting what they wanted now.

It made Draco wonder why _Potter _had studied it. Then he snorted. It was probably something Granger had looked up and nagged Potter about until he implemented the result on his house.

Potter caught the snort and maybe Draco's look, but he said only, "Grimstone tells me that the attack didn't come through the wards."

Draco blinked and stared at Potter. "I don't understand what that means. Of course the bloody Bard had to get through the bloody wards. Do you think we _invited _him inside?" Even if the killer was another former Death Eater, which Draco couldn't believe given his list of victims, Draco had taken care to revoke all the exceptions to the wards that Lucius had put in place the minute his father went to prison. Lucius hadn't taken them back when he came home, either.

Draco's eyes blurred abruptly, and he whirled away from Potter to drum a closest fist against the wall. Potter waited quietly until he turned back.

"No," said Potter. "I don't mean that." The other Auror had already gone back to tapping slowly on the walls with his wand around Draco's parents' bed. "I mean that he came into the bedroom in a different way. It's the difference between coming into a house through an outside door and walking from room to room inside a house."

Draco paused. "So he was already _in _the house," he said, and his voice was dull.

"Yes." This time, Potter pressed briefly against him, just a touch of shoulder to shoulder, as he slipped past Draco and out the door. Draco straightened up and tried not to shake. He thought he could manage it, if barely. "There was something here that brought him. An anchor. Perhaps he'd shed drops of blood inside the house, or left a piece of his hair here. Those would be the usual kinds of anchors."

Draco rubbed his head wearily. He'd heard of what Potter was talking about before, but... "I thought it was only a theory. Sympathetic magic that strong. Magic that could tug you through the wards, and replace Apparition."

Potter gave him a gentle glance. "No. Not anymore."

* * *

><p>"If I knew something, I would tell it to you immediately, to bring the killer of my husband to justice. But I don't know anything."<p>

Sitting in front of Narcissa Malfoy, Harry was certain of that. She had the same sort of dignity he had seen in her when she lied to Voldemort about Harry being alive. She sat bolt upright in front of Harry, in a rocking chair, with a white shawl around her shoulders that looked like a mantle of snow. She kept her eyes grimly on Harry all the while, and the rocking chair didn't tremble once.

Still, Harry had to do what he had to do, so he gave Narcissa a temperate smile and asked, "Tell me the story anyway? Sometimes we can pick out what the victims don't know they know. That's what we're trained to do."

Narcissa gave him a frigid stare. Harry knew the ice wasn't for him, though, and he remained calm. Grimstone and Adbar were questioning Malfoy in another room about his impressions of the bedroom where his father had died. It was best to keep stories separate at first, so as not to have the witnesses convince each other of an impression that one of them might not have experienced, and Harry knew that he and Malfoy were still grating on each other in an uncomfortable way.

"There is no possibility that I would lie," Narcissa said.

"Not lie," said Harry. "Be mistaken."

That only added an extra glaze of ice to Narcissa's features, and she sat up with her hands knotted in her robe. "Why are you here?" she asked. "From what Draco said to me, you cast no spells in the room upstairs, only observed what the others were doing."

"I'm here to guard you, of course," said Harry simply. That seemed to catch Narcissa so utterly by surprise that she only stared at him, which gave Harry the chance to continue. "I'll be watching over you in Grimmauld Place for as long as necessary, until the Bard is caught and punished."

"There is no sign that we'll be the next victims," said Narcissa, after a moment of thinking about it.

"No," Harry agreed readily. "But it's a precaution, and my wards are stronger in a way that I know they need to be, now. Malf-Draco told you about my colleagues' conclusion that the Bard walked through the house by using something already inside the wards as a gateway?"

Narcissa sniffed and gathered her shawl closer. "That magic is theoretical only, Mr. Potter. Impossible."

"Not now," said Harry, and decided that he could reveal this. He was pretty bloody sure that Narcissa Malfoy wasn't the Bard of Morning's Hope. "We've had some Aurors, like Aurors Grimstone and Adbar, working on new techniques that tell them absolutely what kind of magic a murderer or other criminal used. And that's what they say happened here. If it's theoretical for the Aurors or the people we're trying to protect, it's not theoretical for the Bard."

Narcissa looked at him with a turned-down mouth, so motionless that Harry started to stand in concern, thinking he might have to call Malfoy to his mother, even if interrupted the questioning that Adbar and Grimstone were doing. But in seconds, the expression had passed, and Narcissa sat up.

"That is more of an answer than I had before," she murmured, "as far as the question of _how _is concerned. And I will not forget that you brought it to me. I am ready to tell you what I can."

Harry nodded back in relief and sat down. "All right. What time did you get up this morning to go to your engagement?"

As he had expected, and as Narcissa herself had claimed, the details provided little help. Narcissa was certain that Lucius had still been alive when she left. For one thing, Harry thought, she would have noticed that he was an ice statue if Malfoy himself had been able to see that much from the bedroom door. There had been no icy signature on the wall, either, and that would have been noticeable to someone who was half-blind. The Bard always wanted his victims' families to know it was him.

"Who is he?" Narcissa asked abruptly, when Harry had taken her through every step of the morning up until the point when she had left the house. Harry had thought she might start weeping as they discussed Lucius's death more and more, but instead, her eyes were ablaze with such anger it seemed to have burned up the tears. "Do you have _any _clues in that direction?"

Harry looked at her closely. "I'll tell you what I think," he said. "But that's not the same as what the Aurors are officially inclined to proclaim."

"I do not care."

_No more does she, _Harry thought in a little admiration. "And I have to have your promise that you're not going to run out and try to take vengeance based on this," he warned her. "That could be dangerous for everyone involved."

Narcissa made an impatient little motion with her hand, still watching him. Harry accepted it and said, "I don't think there's any doubt that it's a Muggleborn. There were theories at first that it was a surviving Death Eater who blamed his own side for Voldemort's fall, but I don't think that. He would have targeted me first. All the ones we've found like that certainly _have _targeted me."

Narcissa blinked at him. "I did not realize that you had suffered assassination attempts."

"We found it best not to publicize them except when they happened in front of a lot of witnesses." Harry shrugged at her stare. "What they wanted was renown and publicity for trying to destroy me. I'm pretty good at denying wizards who try to kill me what they want. I see no reason to break that tradition."

He won a faint smile from her, as he had hoped he might. Then she said, "But you have no specific suspects?"

Harry hesitated once, then said, "Someone who fought at the Battle of Hogwarts."

Narcissa touched the shawl across her shoulders as if she might find the reason for that written in the strands, and then murmured, "Nothing like that has been reported in the papers."

Harry shook his head. "Like I said, it's my own guess. I think that I might be wrong, and I don't want to risk causing anyone any distress until I know for sure whether it's right."

"You will tell me now why you think yourself right."

Harry hid a smile and nodded. Narcissa was no worse than some of the imperious Auror instructors he had worked with, and he had made them all respect him in the end.

"The only people that the Bard's killed were all at the Battle of Hogwarts," Harry explained. "I didn't think that was true at first, but then I found out all the Death Eaters were there, even Theodore Nott's father, who was reported as being there only a year later. And that Slytherin girl the Bard killed was the same way. She wasn't Marked. Neither was Montagu, actually, although they only discovered that when he was buried. So it can't be that it was just Death Eaters, or even just people on Voldemort's side."

"Mr. Potter," said Narcissa.

It was the second time she had refused to grant him the title "Auror," but Harry wasn't that bothered. He understood why she wouldn't feel the title was important right now. "Yes?" he asked.

"Please refrain from speaking that name around me." Narcissa sat up as though flame was coursing her and holding her back from topping forwards. "I do not wish to hear it, and I _despise _looking like a coward."

Harry was about to reassure her he didn't think she was a coward, but Narcissa caught his gaze, and he understood. She thought she looked like a coward when she flinched. No matter what Harry might tell her about what _he _thought, she would prefer not to do it for her own self-image.

"All right," said Harry calmly. "The people who fought in the Ministry for Snakeface haven't been attacked. Neither have some of the Death Eaters who had actually done more damage in the war, but were in Azkaban or injured and so didn't participate in the battle at Hogwarts. I believe it all comes back to that connection."

"Why haven't you publicized these conclusions, then?" Narcissa now gazed at him like a hawk deciding whether to tear its prey apart right now or wait until it could really sink its claws into the prey's body and give it some pain.

"Because I'm not _sure_." Harry spread his hands. "And until today, I had no primary involvement with this case. I did make the suggestion to the Aurors who are investigating it, and they promised that they would take it into consideration."

"You are only telling me because...?"

_Because you asked, _Harry thought, but that would sound ungracious. "Because your husband was just murdered," he said. _And anything that helps victims make sense of that situation can help._

Narcissa considered it some more. Harry waited, but before she said anything else, the door opened, and Harry turned around.

Grimstone and Adbar stood there, Malfoy between them. Grimstone, a heavyset Auror with a face befitting his name, nodded to Harry. "We're done with the questions, Auror Potter. You'll be moving the witnesses?"

"Yes." Harry stood up and smiled at Malfoy, then turned the smile on Narcissa when Malfoy only stared at him. "I thought I'd extend an invitation to visit me behind my wards."

It took a moment, but Narcissa inclined her head, and Malfoy followed her. "We accept your invitation," said Narcissa. "Only allow us to retrieve some small objects that we will need to feel more comfortable in your home."

Harry nodded in silence, and stood back so that Narcissa could get past him. Meanwhile, he thought of the other reason that his suggestion about the Battle of Hogwarts was one that other people weren't eager to hear.

It struck most of the Aurors as extremely unlikely that the killer was another Death Eater. Which meant, if they'd been at the Battle of Hogwarts, they were dealing with a _hero _of that battle.

Kingsley and several other people high up in the Ministry, committed to justice though Harry knew they were, were also a lot more politically sensitive than Harry was. He knew they didn't want to think about arresting a war hero any more than they did arresting Dennis Creevey right now.

But Harry didn't care. When he had become an Auror, fiery-eyed instructors who _believed _it had told him that the Aurors had an obligation to treat all criminals fairly, bringing them safe and alive to trial. They were arresters, not executioners; they _stopped _things from happening. And Harry believed it as well.

But that also meant that they had an obligation to see that all sorts of people could be criminals-even popular ones, even pretty ones, even ones who had done good in the past. They weren't to stop their investigations merely because the clues were leading them in a direction they didn't like.

So he was going to stop the Bard. And he was going to do it whether that person was Muggleborn, half-blood, pure-blood, crazy or sane, war hero or not.

_If they don't, I will._


	3. Winding the Wards

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Winding the Wards_

"_You _are going to protect the Malfoys."

"That's right," said Harry, and used his cloak to buff his wand. "It's a hard job, and it'll be almost beyond my capacities. But," and he spun around and pointed a solemn finger at Ron, who was standing behind his desk and looking utterly lost, "someone has to do it."

Ron didn't smile, not that Harry had much expected him to. He only leaned forwards and stared hard at Harry. Harry sighed—well, he couldn't _always _make his best friend laugh—and went back to reading the file that contained details on the Bard's past victims, all neatly summarized and tucked in the same few sheets of parchment. He had left the Malfoys at their Manor under Grimstone and Adbar's guard, to pack up what they wanted to take with them.

"But Malfoy hates you," Ron said.

"I think we can get along when I'm in my professional persona," Harry replied, not looking up.

"You hate him."

"See above answer."

Ron rolled his eyes. Harry knew that without even looking up at him, because they were close like that. "You're taking this too personally, you know," Ron finally said. "Just because Kingsley won't take your suspicions on one case doesn't mean that he would refuse to listen to you if you came up with a theory about the Bard. And the problem with the other case is all the political shit, anyway. It's not because Kingsley distrusts you."

Harry sighed, the tension between his shoulders loosening. He hadn't known how much he needed to hear someone else say it, even though he had told it to himself a hundred times a day. He turned around so he could meet Ron's eyes.

"I know that," he said. "As far as the smuggling case goes, I mean. But I also told the team that's spending most of its time on the Bard murders about a theory I had on that case, and they looked at me askance and said they would take it under consideration. I've never received any sign that they will."

Ron blinked. "What _is _that theory? Does it concern the Muggleborn Legion?"

Harry took a moment to add some Locking and Silencing Charms to the door of their office, noticing the way Ron's gaze sharpened. He didn't call Harry paranoid, though. He knew as well as Harry that some people approved of the Bard and thought he was dishing out justice that should have come long since.

"No," Harry said, turning back to him. "It concerns the Battle of Hogwarts. All the people who have died participated in that battle, whether or not they had the Mark on them. And plenty of people who had the Mark on them haven't died. But _those _people were all working in the Ministry or imprisoned or injured at the time."

Ron could figure it out easily enough from there. Harry watched as his mouth tightened, and he looked around once himself.

"Do you suspect an Auror?" Ron whispered.

Harry shook his head. "Not that many Aurors were at the battle, you know. And I know that I have alibis, and everyone else I can think of who was there and an Auror is someone I trust. Like you."

Ron gravely lifted his fingers in front of his face, and peered through them at Harry. "You never know," he said, in a deep, spooky voice. "I could have a secret side as the Bard of Morning's Hope, and _you would never know._"

"Yes, but Hermione would have figured it out and had you arrested by now," Harry pointed out peacefully, and read the last detail that he needed to on the Yaxley case before he put the file back on his desk. It would grow, with the Malfoy case to be added, but Harry could ask the remaining Malfoys if he really needed to know something about that. "You'll visit, I hope? I'm going to rely on you for unbiased information."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "I have to visit Malfoys?"

"And me, you git," Harry told him. "I can be in one room, and the Malfoys can be in the other, connected to be me by a Monitoring Charm."

Ron paused, and eyed him sideways. "Monitoring Charms," he said, in a soft, wondering voice. "You _are _taking this seriously, aren't you?"

"I am," Harry said flatly, and met Ron's eyes. "No one else in that family is going to die. I might not be able to do a lot if the Bard strikes elsewhere, but I _am _going to save the remaining Malfoys' lives."

"Do they know they've become part of one of your crusades?" Ron asked, and a small, unholy smile of glee crept up his mouth.

"I don't know what you mean," said Harry primly, and swirled his cloak the rest of the way around him, then checked inside his desk. He found a few of the toys that he had sometimes had to take along on cases, and tucked them into his pockets.

"Those crusades where you make a vow and then keep it." Ron circled around his own desk and clapped Harry on the shoulder. "The kind of vow that you _didn't _make when you were working on the smuggling case, and I'm glad, because by now their choices would have been to arrest Dennis or arrest you."

"You know that I only do what I've promised to do when I don't think other Aurors can solve the case or there's not a better way." Harry raised his eyebrows at Ron. "And who helps me in those little 'crusades?'"

"My other secret side," Ron said promptly. "The one Hermione knows all about and scolds me for indulging. The one that still wants to go on adventures and learn secrets even after all the times at Hogwarts that we faced danger doing that." His face softened, and he gave Harry's hand a hard wring. "You'll tell me if you need help."

"Of course," Harry said quietly. He and Ron didn't always work together now, even though they had desks in the same office; Kingsley had said that he didn't want them "reinforcing each other's bad tendencies," which in practice meant Harry ran off to break the rules and Ron followed. But he knew he could call on Ron for anything, even coming over to a creepy old house to help him guard Malfoys, and Ron would answer the call. That was the kind of friend he was.

"Good." Ron looked him in the eye one more time, then stepped back with a salute and a nod. "Then go knock them dead. Or at least the Bard."

Harry smiled back, turned, and walked out with his determination gathering around him like an invisible stormcloud. The Bard would find Harry waiting for him no matter how hard he tried to come into the house.

_And not just because of the wards, either. _

Harry put his hand on his pocket, and smiled.

* * *

><p>"You don't think we're going to <em>stay <em>here, do you?"

Draco wrinkled his nose and looked around the kitchen. He wasn't going to complain aloud, like his mother was currently doing, but he didn't think he needed to. Potter would be able to see the disdain written openly on Draco's face, after all.

The kitchen had blank, bare walls. Draco supposed that they might once have been papered or paneled, but all of that was gone. Now there was only utterly bare wood, or plaster, or whatever lingered behind the walls of most normal houses. Draco knew it would have been marble at Malfoy Manor, but then again, he'd never lived in a normal house. Thank Merlin.

"Of course I don't expect you to stay in the kitchen," said Potter, in a slightly scandalized tone that made Draco look immediately, and suspiciously, at him. Potter handed his cloak to a house-elf who appeared and disappeared so fast that Draco didn't get a good look at it, and smiled blandly at Draco's mother. "I have a space upstairs that's prepared in a way I hope you'll like. I did some protection spells, but Kreacher did the vast majority of the cleaning."

"Kreacher is your elf?" Narcissa rearranged the shawl over her shoulders in a way Draco knew well. His mother had started wearing a shawl during the war, when so many rooms of the Manor seemed so cold and empty even when the Death Eaters weren't in them, but she had kept it after the war because it was so useful for making a point. She was going to make a big point, from the way she was shuffling it now.

Potter nodded. "And most of the rest of the house is well-kept. This is just a renovation project I started and haven't got around to finishing." He waved his hand at the kitchen.

"Why not, Potter?" Draco managed to find his voice. "I would think the kitchen would be a particularly important room for you."

"Why's that?" Potter twisted his head and glared at Draco with narrowed eyes that made Draco feel he'd scored a point, although he didn't know much about why.

"Because you're not good at potions, and you probably require far more than one try at good cooking," said Draco coolly. "Or did some explosion here necessitate removing the paper, rather than your renovation project?" Yes, Draco was almost certain it had been paper on the walls, and not something else.

But Potter only laughed and shook his head. "Kreacher does my cooking for me," he said, and began to lead the way towards the far door out of the kitchen, his head twisted back as if he wanted to make sure that Draco and Narcissa were following instead of lingering in his precious ripped-up room. "I don't spend a lot of time here, anyway."

Draco caught up with Potter easily. His mother was walking slowly, probably looking at changes in the walls and doors that Draco didn't know about and wouldn't care about if he did. "And yet, you strengthened the wards and proposed to bring us here," he muttered to Potter.

Potter shrugged. Draco was beginning to wonder what it would take to make a dent in his armor. "I did strengthen the wards back when I was living here all the time and not spending so much time at the Ministry. And it's a safe place. I don't mind staying here while I guard you, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm _so _glad."

Potter finally did stop at the base of a set of stairs that looked as though they'd last been scrubbed some time in the nineteenth century, and faced him. "I was unaware that I'd done anything particularly bad to you since school, Malfoy," he said, and folded his arms. "Why are you lashing out like this?"

"Because my father was _bloody murdered, _and you aren't acting normal?" Draco snarled back. "I just want one thing that's _normal_."

A second later, he winced. He hadn't really meant to reveal that, or not so bluntly.

Potter's eyes softened, though, and he nodded. "I reckon I can see why you'd want that," he said, and touched a quick hand to the wall by Draco's hand, although he didn't actually touch Draco. "Well. Come on, then, and I'll be a little more brusque."

Against his will, Draco smiled. Potter escorted him upstairs, pausing to point out the library and a bathroom. Then he nodded to a door near the end of one corridor and said, "That's my room. It was my godfather's. I'm going to put you in there. I've enlarged it and added a second bed."

"Where will you sleep, then?" Draco looked around. There were plenty of other doors. He had been sure that Potter would choose separate bedrooms for them. "And why not put us up in some of these rooms?"

"It's easier if you stay together," said Potter. His eyes hardened. "The Bard seems to attack his victims when they're alone, most often. I'd rather not hear a scream and be guarding the wrong person. This way, I'll be equally close to both of you."

Draco winced again, but in silence. He hadn't thought Potter would lay it out that bluntly.

A second later, Potter winced, too, and glanced guiltily at him. "And anyway," he added, "the room's bigger, now. I can sleep on the floor."

Draco rolled his eyes. "No third bed for you?"

"Not _that _big," said Potter, and his tone was a little brusque. Draco thought it was on purpose. "Not that I'll be doing that much sleeping, at first. Anyway. Come see." He flung open the door of the room.

Draco stepped in and turned around, blinking. The room was large and well-lit, the sun flooding through windows that he'd had no idea existed. Of course, one could do wonderful things with wizardspace…

He turned to Potter and cocked his head. "Did you put these windows in?"

Potter nodded. "When I enlarged the room, yes." He crossed it and lifted one of the panes, then knocked on something Draco couldn't see. "And shutters that take part in the strengthened wards. Draw your wand and fling a spell at it."

Draco drew his wand, but hesitated. "If I get knocked down because the spell bounces back at me, the Ministry will have a lawsuit on their hands."

"I know that," said Potter, and stepped aside. "That's not the effect the wards have. You can see if it you just fling the spell." And then he locked his hands behind his back and looked at Draco with patient attention, as if he wanted to see what Draco was going to do next as a kind of experiment.

Draco snorted with exasperation and aimed his wand. He had heard his mother arrive in the doorway behind them, but he didn't see the need to turn around and look at her. She would have heard most of Potter's words, and he knew she would probably like sleeping in the same room as him rather than alone. "Lawsuit," he reminded Potter, and used a Blasting Curse on the center of the window, where Potter had knocked on the invisible shutter.

He made the spell nonverbal, just to test how strong Potter's wards really were. They wouldn't be much use against the Bard, who used magic that no one even knew how to classify, if they didn't stop nonverbal spells.

Draco tensed as the magic shone in the middle of the shutter for a moment. Despite Potter's reassurance, he was still ready to dive aside, and he watched in confusion as, instead, the spell only surged back and forth in the middle of the shutter, forming a shape that looked oddly like the lightning bolt scar on Potter's head.

Then it faded away.

Draco glanced at Potter, who smiled back at him. "The tension I told you about, between the sun and the moon, tugs at the spells that hit the wards until any power is shredded to pieces," Potter explained.

Draco nodded slowly. Whatever caused it—and he wasn't entirely sure he believed Potter's explanation, which he could be using to protect an even greater secret—the effect was a great one. Now he felt a little better about being here, and having his mother with him as well.

"We will need cupboards for our clothes," said his mother, her voice calm and cool in a way that Draco envied. "And we will need a place to put the photographs and other treasures we brought."

Draco sighed a little. He knew what she meant. She had brought several photographs of Lucius, since they had no portrait. She would want to put them up and look at them.

_And why not? He was alive this morning. Now he's…not_.

Draco had to sit down abruptly on the bed that stood nearest the door, because he was shaky. Potter cast him a soft glance, but Draco glared back before he lowered his face into his hands. He meant what he'd said about Potter acting stupidly and making things harder for Draco when he did.

"I left the trunk at the foot of the stairs," said Narcissa.

Draco sighed. He knew why she was saying that, and he thought even Potter might be grateful to her as he nodded and slipped out the door. Draco lay back limply on the bed and sighed towards the ceiling. His mother sat down on the bed next to him, and there was silence for a moment.

"Did Potter share with you his suspicions regarding the Bard's nature?" Narcissa asked abruptly.

"No," said Draco, blinking at her. He wondered what suspicions Potter could possibly have. He didn't have the special training that the Aurors who had investigated his father's bedroom did. By Potter's own admission, he was trained as a bodyguard, and nothing else. Draco reckoned that would impress some people, but Draco didn't think it would lead Potter to find someone who had killed so many.

"He thinks all the deaths are linked back to the Battle of Hogwarts." His mother took off her shawl and deposited it carefully on the bed.

Draco thought about it. Yes, he reckoned he could see that. And that meant…

"Someone could follow the trail back and find out who was there and unaccounted for," he murmured.

"I promised Potter that I would not seek out vengeance," said Narcissa. "He said it would make his job of guarding us harder. And you know that your father would not want us to try and seek revenge at the expense of staying alive and preserving the family name."

Draco nodded absently, but his mind was ranging ahead. He wondered what in the world the person who sought revenge on the Death Eaters was blaming them for. A specific death? Being there at all? Destroying Hogwarts?

"I won't do anything that could place me in danger," he said. "Owl a few people. Ask for newspapers that print the full list of the dead. We might be able to figure out from last names which relatives are still alive."

Narcissa gave him a smile cold and bright as the moon. "Yes," she said softly. "I knew you would have some ideas."

Draco took a deep breath and sat up. So. He had a plan. He had something he could do. His fate wasn't completely dependent on Potter. It wasn't that Draco really distrusted Potter, but he did want to have a way to be independent of him.

And find this bloody Bard.

_Father, I promise you. We are going to find him._


	4. Visitors

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—Visitors_

Harry came downstairs, rolling his shoulders. He had carried the Malfoys' baggage slowly up the stairs, because he had wanted them to have time to themselves, or time to stop talking about him—if that was what they were doing. But that had meant doing it without a helpful charm, and _that _meant strained shoulders.

Worse, it didn't seem to have worked. The Malfoys had stopped and stared at him with almost identical expressions when he carried the trunks in, and Harry had been left feeling as if this wasn't his home. Going downstairs to get tea had seemed like a genius idea, even when both Malfoy and his mum refused tea. At least Harry would get something warm in his stomach and down his throat, and he would have at least a few moments of privacy.

He hadn't even reached for his cup, though, before the fireplace whooshed. Harry turned around in surprise, but he had to smile when he saw Molly Weasley's face in the flames.

"Harry." Molly smiled back at him. "How are you? Do you still want me to bring that dinner I promised through?"

"Please," Harry said, and he thought it was the fervent tone in his voice that made Molly laugh. A second later, she clucked her tongue.

"You look as if you've had a tiring day, dear," she said, and began to reach off to the sides, where Harry knew she would have the dishes standing ready with the dinner. Molly said she couldn't get used to cooking for less than nine people, even though most of her children didn't live in the Burrow now, so there were always leftovers Harry was more than happy to take off her hands.

Especially since he knew that she was more than capable of cooking exactly as much food as she wanted, and that Ron tended to drop in more than once a week, and sometimes Ginny and George were there for dinner, too. Harry just liked seeing how much Molly cared for him, even now.

"Well, there's been that latest murder in the Bard case," Harry said, listening with appreciation to the clattering of the dishes. "Lucius Malfoy, this time. And I want to catch the bastard, so I'm housing the remaining Malfoys with me."

Molly paused. Harry expected some kind of negative reaction, but instead, her eyes lit up. "Good. I'll bring over some of my new recipes, then."

"You _want _to feed them?" Harry blinked. Even knowing how incredibly generous Molly was, this was the family that the Weasleys had had a blood feud with for a long time.

"I want to use them as test subjects," Molly said, with a faint smile. More dishes clattered. "I made a cake last night that multiplied itself, somehow, and neither George nor Ginny would touch it. Ginny's talking about keeping her weight down as a Seeker, and George said that he can't afford to have the magic in the cake mingling with his and causing havoc in the shop." Molly clucked her tongue again. "So I thought I would get rid of both extra food and magical food."

Harry had to grin, and he went on making the cup of tea. That was one of the few things that Molly didn't try to bring through the Floo. Even the supernatural feats of balance that made her able to carry dishes apparently wouldn't let her carry liquids with that kind of ease.

A few minutes later, Molly slid through the fireplace with steaming plates on both arms, her shoulders, and her head, and more floating behind her. Harry hurried to take them from her, enchanting the ones she was carrying so they flew. He knew that she liked to carry them herself to test the temperature and because she could make sure that the vulnerable food was more securely carried than it would be in a bobbing dish, but Harry preferred food to land on the table and not the floor.

_Even if it's colder that way, _he thought, and exchanged smiles with Molly as he got the last plate settled. "Let me call the Malfoys, then," he said, and paused to stare at a large platter loaded with several dozen small cakes, all of them covered with black icing. "That's the cake that duplicated itself?"

"Yes, and a terrible time I had shrinking it, too," Molly said, and sniffed. "And this morning, Arthur refused to eat them. As though he hadn't eaten plenty of magic, what with how often I use it to cook!"

"I'll be the brave one," Harry said, and ignored Molly's mock glare as he reached for one of the cakes and brought it to his mouth.

He felt the sweet sting of the icing along his tongue, and for a moment wondered what the fuss was about. It tasted pretty normal to him, although it did seem as though there was a thickness to the icing, as though it was really smeared around the back of the cake instead of in the front or something—

A second later, he choked, and staggered. Yes, there was a _lot _of magic in that cake, and the various spells were all bursting in his mouth like fireworks. Harry thought about spitting out the cake, but he couldn't do that. It would hurt Molly. He rode through the miniature pains that the spells offered him in silence.

And after another few seconds, it wasn't that bad. The spell effects faded away into nothing more than the pop and snap of spice, and the sweetness came back. It was more startling than anything else. Harry moved his tongue around his mouth and cautiously swallowed.

"Now, was that so bad?" Molly spread her hands imploringly. "I ask you."

"I'll eat them," said Harry, and carefully set the plate aside. "Because they're good. But I'm not sure that I should give any to the Malfoys. They might think _I'm _the one trying to assassinate them."

"What was that, Potter?"

Harry started. Malfoy had come down the stairs and into the kitchen so quietly that Harry hadn't heard him, and now he was standing turning his head back and forth from Harry to Molly, going redder and redder in the cheeks.

"I brought food for you," said Molly, acting as though Draco was—was Percy, Harry realized with a start. Percy had alternated since the war between acting abjectly sorry and acting as though he thought certain things he'd done, like his devotion to the Ministry, were still right. Molly had countered that by adopting an attitude of unwavering calm. "I thought you must be hungry. But Harry doesn't think you or your mother ought to eat the cakes. They're too full of magic, and they sparked in his mouth."

"Ow," Harry added, and traced his tongue back and forth behind his teeth, which he thought must be blackened from the cake's internal fire.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Harry looked away and attended to his tea so he wouldn't say anything. On the one hand, he knew how hard it must be for Malfoy, whose emotions would be swinging back and forth. Merlin knew that Harry had felt that way when Sirius died, and he hadn't had Sirius for nearly as long as Malfoy had had his father.

On the other hand, he could stop behaving as if Harry and anyone else who came into the house _was _the Bard of Morning's Hope. It was more than a little annoying.

"Fine," said Malfoy, and turned back to Molly. "I'd like some of the food to take up to my mother. She's feeling too weak to come down the stairs right now."

Harry started to ask, "What—" A few of the Bard's victims had died of poisoning, and there was the chance that the Bard could have spread some silent poison before he left the house. Narcissa had looked perfectly competent to climb the stairs earlier.

He shut his mouth as Molly stepped on his foot. Molly was nodding and piling the small sandwiches of cucumbers and pickles up in the middle of a tray. "Of course. Here you are." She held out the plate to Malfoy. Harry watched appreciatively. Molly really was acting the way she did with Percy, minus the "dear" that she usually attached to sentences addressed to Percy.

_Give her time, and she might even be able to do that, _Harry thought. He knew Molly got along with those that appreciated her cooking.

Malfoy took the tray slowly, and let his eyes travel over the mounds of food. "You cooked this?" he said.

"That's right," said Molly in a neutral voice.

Malfoy's hands tightened on the tray, and for a second, Harry thought he might reject the whole meal. Which was the point where Harry stepped in, because enough was enough.

"And it's a good thing she did, because I need to add some more strength to the wards, and that always leaves me too exhausted to cook," he added blandly, and drained his teacup. "We won't want for food while we have this." He smiled at Molly and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Thanks."

"I thought your house-elf—"

He probably had told Malfoy that, fool that he was. Harry shrugged, pretending unconcern. "Well, he does make me food, and I do eat it. But this is better than you're going to get from Kreacher. He has some peculiar tastes sometimes." He winked at Malfoy and Molly, and threw his cloak over his shoulder. "I'll be back in an hour."

Malfoy stiffened up and moved out of the kitchen with his platter. Molly shook her head at Harry. "That wasn't nice, dear."

"I couldn't bear him standing there and treating you like shit," Harry hissed back. "He can eat it or not eat it, but he's not going to haul that old blood feud in here and make it about that when it should be _gone_."

Molly looked at him thoughtfully. "I agree, dear, but I don't know if Ron or the others will, when they visit."

"There's a difference, though," said Harry, and opened the outer door. "I can sit on Ron."

"I'm going to go home and cook some more," said Molly, and cast a Preservation and Warming Charm on the food, then came over to kiss him on the cheek again. "It looks as though Mrs. Malfoy might need some delicacies."

Harry smiled. "She might appreciate them, if she ever comes down the stairs."

He hugged Molly back, and then stepped out and aimed his wand at the wards. What he had told Malfoy about strengthening them with astronomical magic was perfectly true, but he also needed to think about what other defenses might stand against the will of the Bard.

After a second of hesitation, he decided. _I know perfectly well what I'm going to do. Why don't I go ahead and do it? _

And then he began to cast the crackling, sparkling silvery magic that he knew the Bard wouldn't suspect, because Harry, technically, wasn't supposed to have it.

* * *

><p>"The food is from Molly Weasley," Draco said, and didn't slam the tray down on the edge of the table near the two beds only because he knew his mother wouldn't appreciate the noise and the mess flying everywhere. She could tell how angry he was from his voice, and didn't need a further demonstration.<p>

Narcissa took a moment to study his face, then looked back at the food and said, "It doesn't _look _poisoned."

"Yes, but who can tell what the Weasleys might do?" Draco sat down and raked his hand through his hair. Truth be told, he didn't know why he was so angry, why the suffocating waves of rage were rushing through him, and he didn't know how to suppress them, either.

_All right, so it's probably a reaction to Father's death._

But knowing that didn't _help_. And Draco didn't want to alienate Potter, who was their only protection, but he didn't want to put up with Weasleys dropping in to gape or taunt them, either.

Narcissa quietly cast a few detection spells on the food, which consisted of sandwiches and a bowl of soup with multiple spoons, and then nodded. "Too much pepper in the soup. I'll have to avoid it. Other than that, it looks fine."

Draco grudgingly picked up one of the sandwiches. He bit into it, and it tasted fresh and good. That only increased his resentment.

"Draco."

He looked up. His mother had a sandwich on her lap, on top of a napkin that she must have Transfigured from one of the handkerchiefs she frequently carried, and she had a restraining hand stretched out to him as well.

"I know what you are feeling," said Narcissa, and for just a moment her eyes closed. "But we need to retain cool heads and neutrality towards Potter and his friends as much as we can. It was none of _them_ who killed Lucius."

"How sure can you be?" Draco asked bitterly, and tore open his sandwich to pick at the cucumbers. "After all, Granger might be smart enough to figure out a way past our wards, and the Weasleys have hated us for a long time. They had—well, George Weasley and his brother created that swamp in Hogwarts that it took the professors forever to get rid of. The remaining one might be able to imitate the Bard's magical effects." He finally looked his mother in the eye and spoke what he was most afraid of. "What if Father wasn't a victim of the Bard, but a personal enemy? Someone who took the chance to kill him and just make it _look _like the Bard?"

"If that was the case, then I think we would have found more traces." His mother's smile was hard and bitter, and didn't touch her eyes. "The Bard is the only one who can break through wards so untraceably, and kill a wizard as powerful as your father—was in such a short amount of time. If there were two wizards, someone would have more of an idea of how he did it."

Draco found himself unwilling to let go of the idea. "And if this person was a friend of Potter's, and he recognized their handiwork when he arrived, but didn't let on?" He shoved the cucumbers around on the bread for a moment. "How can we trust _anything_ Potter says?"

His mother leaned across and touched his hand gently. "You mustn't let yourself take on so, Draco," she said, and her smile was kind but compelling. "I know this is hard. I _know _it. But the chances are vanishingly small, and in our quest for vengeance, we must look for real possibilities."

"Chances and coincidences pile up where Potter's concerned," Draco muttered darkly.

His mother held his gaze for a moment. "And do you believe that he would be so eager to sacrifice his Auror career and everything else for the sake of protecting a murderous friend?"

About to say that Potter would do anything to protect a friend, Draco hesitated. It was also true that Potter was annoyingly pure about his cause of good, or had become so since the war. He arrested Muggleborn criminals right along with pure-blood ones, and didn't seem to care that some of the people who had lost their reputations when he investigated them were ones he'd helped during the war.

"I don't know," he muttered.

"Look for chances and coincidences closer to home," Narcissa told him softly, and picked up her own sandwich again. "Do what you must to find revenge for Lucius, but don't search far afield until you have to."

Draco reluctantly admitted there was something to that, and went back to his lunch. The sandwich being absolutely delicious didn't actually soothe his feelings.

* * *

><p>"Auror Potter."<p>

Harry stopped, glad that he was at a point in the tracing of his wards where that wouldn't be fatal. And he was more than surprised to see who stood in front of him, staring at him somberly from beyond the edge of the property.

"How are you, Dennis?" Harry watched Dennis Creevey carefully. It was true that the Aurors wouldn't move on the evidence Harry had handed them about Dennis being linked to the smuggling case, but Dennis might have known Harry was the one urging the Aurors to do so. And that meant it was a good idea to beware of him.

"I'm fine." Dennis hesitated, then paused and tossed his long blond hair out of his eyes. He had grown into a tall man who apparently was strong enough to hold his own in wrestling competitions the Muggleborn Legion sponsored and win, although he was a bit stoop-shouldered for Harry's taste. "I just—I just want you to know—"

"Yes?" Harry prompted.

"One of our members, Tatyana Kingston, is missing," said Dennis in a rush. He turned away from Harry. "She left last night saying that she was going to a Muggle pub where we meet sometimes, and then she didn't return, and the ones who were there to meet her said she hadn't come, either. And I realized—I looked up some other dates, and—" Dennis licked his lips and turned back. "She's been out of our headquarters on the nights of at least two Bard murders. And I heard the rumors that there's been another one."

Harry looked carefully at Dennis's sweaty forehead and trembling hands. Dennis seemed to realize they were trembling a second later, and locked them behind his back with a shaky smile.

"We'll look into it," Harry said. He privately doubted there was much in it, but they did have to investigate every lead they came across.

"Thank you," said Dennis. "You can imagine how disastrous this would be for my organization, if she was seen as its face."

He turned away again and walked off towards an Apparating point. Harry leaned against the wards and watched him go.


	5. Slip-Through

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five—Slip-Through_

"So _that's _suspicious," Ron said, after Harry had wound up the story of Dennis coming to see him and giving him Tatyana Kingston's name.

"Bloody suspicious," Harry said, shifting so he could get more of the cushion under his knees. It had seemed ridiculous to him that he should have to be uncomfortable on a stone floor every time he wanted to firecall someone—and chats with Neville and Molly in particular could take a long time. So he had a cushion in front of the hearth now. "The only thing I can't figure out is what Dennis wants. Is he trying to distract attention from himself? Or from someone else in the Muggleborn Legion? Or is it a distraction technique combined with real news about a missing woman who needs to be found?"

Ron was silent for a moment, fingers rapping on the desktop. It made a pile of parchment tilt dangerously near the floor, and Ron had to break off whatever he was about to say to snatch the pile before it could fall. Harry looked up at the ceiling and whistled innocently.

"Shut it, you," Ron grumbled.

"Then I can't discuss anything with you," said Harry, and blinked at him.

Ron flipped him off. "You're sure it's a distraction technique," he said.

"What are the chances," Harry said gently, "that Dennis would have noticed the pattern of Kingston's disappearances coinciding with the Bard's killings _just now_? What are the chances that he'd feel the need to come to us when news of Lucius Malfoy's death hasn't even been officially released yet?"

"So how did he find it out?" Ron jumped in.

"Through someone in his organization who likes to brag?" Harry shrugged. "Listen, I know you and Dennis have fought together a time or two." Dennis and Ron both belonged to an informal dueling organization that liked to run pairs of wizards opposite each other instead of just having single duelists fight each other all the time, and Dennis and Ron had been a pair. "I'm not saying he _is _the Bard. I'm just saying I don't believe him any more than I would Bellatrix walking up to me fluttering her eyelashes and saying I was the love of her life."

Ron shivered and clawed at his shoulder. "Thanks _so much _for that disturbing image, mate."

Harry grinned at him. "I live to spread my disturbing images around and make sure other people know all about them, too."

Ron rolled his eyes at him. "So what do you want me to investigate now? Dennis? Or just report on how the investigation into Kingston's disappearance goes?"

"Just report," said Harry, and shrugged. "If you can without compromising your integrity or silencing orders. But since I'm part of this case now and I can't leave the house unless I take the Malfoys with me—"

"You're going to receive reports anyway," said Ron, and began to grin. "You want me to, what? Add that little something extra to them I did on the Gillencrest case?"

"That would be helpful," said Harry. "After all, that little something extra helped us solve the case, didn't it?"

Ron rolled his eyes again. "Helped _you_. I didn't even realize how much vital information I was passing along to you at the time."

"But you did later. And you did it. That's the important thing." Harry shifted around on the cushion and sighed as he heard someone yell his name from upstairs. "I have things to take care of here. Keep me informed?"

"Of course." Ron flipped off a salute and then turned and left the office before Harry could yell at him for it, making continuing the firecall pointless. Harry still grumbled to himself as he shut down the Floo.

"Potter!"

That sounded like fear. Harry rolled to his feet and drew his wand, running straight for the stairs as he did so.

* * *

><p>Draco didn't know how he was supposed to use a bathroom that had a <em>portrait <em>in it.

"It's not as though I care about what you look like, you know," said the unpleasant old man in the portrait, sniffing a little. "I'm rather past that point of my existence."

"I don't want you in here," said Draco. "Point or no point." He folded his arms and tried to stare down the portrait, while his mind worked furiously. Portraits could be gaps in the wards, couldn't they? Draco knew that none of the pictured ancestors in his own manor would have betrayed their descendants to the Bard of Morning's Hope, but he knew nothing about the Black ancestors, including this one.

Even if they liked Mother, if they remembered her from her visits here as a child, the Black family had always been a little strange. What if they'd betrayed her and Draco for a lark, or under the sincere belief that they were doing good?

"What's the matter?" Potter came springing through the door, his cloak rippling behind him.

Draco stared at him for a second. Potter had his wand out, his eyes narrowed as if he needed to shut out strong sunlight, and his body seemed to flow together into a collection of sleek, strong lines. He was every inch the Cool, Competent Auror.

Draco swallowed, and a barely-noticed fear plaguing him died away. At least Potter was going to be _able _to track down the Bard of Morning's Hope. Draco couldn't watch the way he spun around, scanning the room for the threat, and doubt that.

A second later, though, Potter slipped his wand back into its holster and shook his head at the portrait. "I didn't realize that was a frame you could use, Phineas," he said.

Draco turned warily back to the man. "Phineas Nigellus?" he asked. "My mother told me a few tales about you."

"She left out all the best ones, I bet, or you would have shown me more respect," said the portrait, and turned to talk to Potter before Draco could retort that it wasn't as if Narcissa had told him what Phineas Nigellus _looked _like. "I only use this portrait frame when I sense strange magic in the house. I would never use it to spy on you, boy."

"Yes, well, I don't want you to use it to spy on my guests, either," said Potter, shaking his head. His hair was tangled and wind-worn, and he folded his arms and scowled at the portrait. "He's my guest, all right? So is his mother. Go away."

"But I need to learn more about _why_," said Phineas, and Draco could see the gleam in his eyes as he leaned back against a faint line that might have been a bookshelf in the blurred painting. "If only to reassure those old gossips back at Hogwarts that you _might _be on the brink of a chance of having more company, not squatting up here at all hours of the night like a raven in a paperwork nest."

Potter flushed, but his gaze never wavered. "Protecting them on a case. Lucius Malfoy died this morning." He gave a quick glance at Draco, and then averted his eyes as if he was afraid that he might intrude on Draco's grief. "Anyway, Grimmauld Place is the safest place for them right now."

Phineas straightened up and looked from Potter to Draco. "What a waste," he remarked at last, and turned and disappeared from the frame.

A little relieved that Phineas didn't seem interested in coming back, Draco turned to Potter. "What does _that _mean?"

Potter shook his head. "Phineas was Headmaster of Hogwarts at one time. He gossips with all of them, including Dumbledore, and apparently there are wagers going on as to the time when I'm tired of living alone and start—I don't even know. Hanging out with my fans, dating, spending time with someone other than Ron and Hermione, deciding that I believe my own press and consider myself a hero and a public toast." He waved a disgusted hand. "_Portraits_."

"And he thought—he thought _I _might be someone you would be interested in dating?" Draco only then knew how badly he'd been rattled by his father's death, because he had picked up on that as the only noteworthy thing in Potter's little monologue.

"Yes," said Potter. "If it bothers you, then I can give you another bathroom."

"It doesn't _bother _me," said Draco, and straightened up. He might be rattled, he might be unable to prevent the Bard's attacks by himself, but he wasn't going to be a coward about something he understood, in the middle of a warded and protected house, no less. "Go away. I'm just going to use the loo and take a shower now that there's no spying portrait about."

"Of course," Potter said, and turned and loped out of the bathroom.

Draco exhaled an angry hiss as he started to take his clothes off. He didn't know what he was angry at, but it felt good to have something to be angry _about _instead of just scared and shaken and wondering when the next blow would fall.

Even if he had to admit that the stupid portrait probably deserved his anger more than Potter did.

* * *

><p>"No sign of her."<p>

Harry leaned back and nodded slowly. Auror Grimstone was the one who had delivered the report, not because he'd been deeply involved in the search for Kingston, but because he had already undertaken the investigation and handled sensitive information about the Bard. "And the Muggleborn Legion wouldn't let you see the records that specified she was gone on the nights of two other Bard attacks, I suppose?"

Grimstone's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Creevey claims there aren't any records, that this just comes from observations and memories."

Harry snorted. They knew from the information they had gained on the smuggling case that the Muggleborn Legion kept _extensive _records of everything, and their agents were encouraged to write down all these reports and different sorts of recollections so they could use "the weapon of the written word" against their tormentors. "Right. Well. Thanks for the report."

Grimstone touched his pointed hat—he was one of the traditionalists among the Aurors who insisted on wearing one at all times—and the Floo died down again. Harry put one hand thoughtfully over his mouth and stared up at the ceiling.

He liked Dennis Creevey for the Bard. He certainly did. He fit the specifics Harry had privately decided on: Muggleborn, had reason to think evil of people on Voldemort's side who had survived the battle where his brother had died, and had the required fanatical determination, which he had demonstrated when he founded the Muggleborn Legion.

On the other hand, Harry had been close to Dennis several times now, not just outside his wards today but when he visited the Muggleborn Legion to ask about cases and interviewed Dennis about his connections with the smuggling case and even when they had met casually before Harry became an Auror. Harry thought he was pretty good at picking up on someone's magic. He couldn't tell what spells someone was capable of casting, or even whether they had a specific ability like an Animagus form. But he could tell whether they were particularly focused, or determined, or powerful.

Hermione's magic was a quiet song singing away to itself, starred and dotted with sparkling bursts of notes that danced up and down the scale. Harry knew—because he knew her—that it meant she was good at figuring out new uses for common spells, and brewing potions she'd never completed before. Her magic had been one of the first focal points that helped him figure out what his impressions meant.

Ron's magic was a lazy river, most of the time. Ron had power, but not the focus Hermione did; he would surge to the rescue to defend friends or victims in need, or chase down criminals, but he wasn't on high alert all the time. Several of the Aurors were somewhere along the same spectrum as Ron, although the more paranoid ones sounded more like grumbling waterfalls. Harry was a little sorry that he'd never got the chance to listen to Mad-Eye Moody. It would probably have been a raging torrent.

Harry didn't know what _he _sounded like, because you couldn't listen to yourself, but he did know what a whole bunch of people sounded like. And he knew what magical theorists and geniuses sounded like—all the different kinds, from people like Hermione to Unspeakables, to spell creators and those who had made genuine breakthroughs.

The Bard _had _to be one of those people. And Dennis didn't sound like him. He sounded like a low, subdued song that became fervent only when he spoke of injustices against Muggleborns.

Harry sighed and stood up. Maybe the Bard really was this Tatyana Kingston. Or, more likely, someone else in the group, someone who was valuable and Dennis wasn't ready to see sacrificed.

_I'll have to request a list of everyone in the Muggleborn Legion, and try to arrange to meet them, or at least eliminate the ones I have met, _Harry thought, a little annoyed. He had thought he would be doing more of the thinking, with bodyguard work. But he—

A scream rang from upstairs.

This time, Harry didn't bother running up the steps the way he had when Malfoy yelled for him earlier. He folded his arms and shut his eyes, and that silver lightning he had added to the wards, product of another inheritance he wanted no more than he'd wanted the Black fortune and property from Sirius, seized on him and whirled him to his destination.

* * *

><p>Draco was yelling for his mother as he thumped around, trying to understand why his <em>Lumos <em>Charm wasn't coming to life, why he couldn't see in the thick darkness of the bedroom that shouldn't be _that _dark, and feeling the gust of cold that traveled past his cheek.

Then the charm sprang to life, and filled the bedroom with brilliant shadows, and Draco shook his head hard and faced his mother's bed.

There was nothing there now, but Narcissa was sitting up with something over her nose and mouth. Draco reached out and took it. It looked as though it was an ordinary handkerchief, but when Draco turned it over, it was starred with small spots of blood.

"_Damn _it."

Draco blinked and turned his head. Potter was beside him, but Draco hadn't heard him come in. Potter had his wand pointed at a corner that was opposite from Narcissa's bed. He dropped his hand slowly and repeated the bleak words. "Damn it."

"What the hell happened?" Draco whispered. He would have liked to demand clarification instead of merely ask for it, but at the moment, he didn't have it in him.

"The Bard was here," said Potter. "And it's no comfort knowing I was right that he might stalk you if I can't be here to bloody fucking _prevent _it." He turned and came up to Narcissa. "Are you all right, Mrs. Malfoy?"

"I will be," said Narcissa, and bowed her head a little. "But you should take care of that handkerchief, and not use language like that in front of me again." She reached up as if she was going to adjust the shawl across her shoulders, and stopped.

"Where's your shawl?" Draco demanded, glad he could use a normal tone of voice once in a while.

"I do not know," said Narcissa hollowly.

"Here," said Potter, and took the handkerchief from Draco. He turned it over and nodded. "Transfigured from the shawl," he said, his voice clinical. "He planned to use it in the murder somehow, although I think he must have slipped up—otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to scream."

"Potter, do you _mind_?" Draco snapped, seeing how pale his mother's face was becoming. He stepped up to Narcissa and wrapped his arms around her, frowning severely at Potter. "No wonder they usually keep you at bodyguard work; you haven't the slightest idea of how to behave around people who need comfort."

"I'm sorry," said Potter, and shook his head. "I just—I need to keep this. It's the first time we've ever had a clue as to what the Bard was planning to do." He looked straight at Draco's mother, and smiled as gently as Draco thought he could at that moment, while he was being the Big Bad Auror. "It's the first time that someone has ever survived a Bard attack, in fact."

That made Draco's mother tilt her head back, and Draco relaxed. Potter might be pants at traditional means of comforting, but maybe he had spoken with enough pure-bloods to know what to do when he had to. "All right, Potter. Then maybe you can tell me how the Bard got through the wards?"

"That, I'm working on," Potter replied, and turned around slowly as though looking for clues. "At the moment, I'm more interested in why he fled with his work uncompleted. We know at other times, the presence of someone sleeping in the same room wasn't a deterrent to him."

Draco looked with Potter's eyes, trying to think like an Auror. But the only things in the room were the ones that Potter had kept here all along or Transfigured for them, and the small keepsakes they had brought with them from the Manor, the photographs of his father and their small toiletries and clothes. Draco knew that none of them had ever been owned by a Muggleborn, and he was at a loss as to how they could have been used in the sympathetic magic Potter said had got past the Manor's wards.

"Have you had a Muggleborn visit your house recently?" he asked. "They could have left something here."

Potter stiffened a little. "Dennis Creevey did come by today," he whispered. "But he didn't try to get through the wards. He wanted to tell me about a missing Muggleborn woman he claims is the Bard."

"Then go check the bloody wards," Draco snapped, and for once, Potter did as he was told, disappearing down the stairs again.

Draco narrowed his eyes in thought. Perhaps someone who hadn't got through the wards personally couldn't have influenced them in the way the Bard would have to, but Draco had thought of someone else.

Potter's friend Granger had been at the Battle of Hogwarts. She'd lost friends there. She would surely visit Potter's house all the time.

Draco had someone to watch for.


	6. Unwanted Answers

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six—Unwanted Answers_

"So Ron tells me that you have a problem," said Hermione, and swept her cloak behind her, sitting down with a flourish in the largest chair at the table.

Harry grinned and leaned back with his legs crossed, one foot on the table, because he enjoyed what happened when he did that. He received a glare harsh enough to nearly roast the wood, and certainly his leg. He blinked tamely at Hermione and dropped his foot to the floor, looking up at her from beneath his eyelashes.

"I _wish _you wouldn't do that," said Hermione, with a shake of her head that seemed to accuse herself of indulging him as much as it accused Harry of indulging in horrid behavior. "It's disgusting to have a shoe up on the table." She brightened. "Did you know how many germs there are on the bottoms of shoes? And then you track them through all the mud and put them on the table, and, combined with the loose magic you have trailing around you—"

Harry rolled his eyes and raised one hand. "All right, Hermione, that'll do."

"But I hadn't even got to the connection with dragonpox yet," Hermione muttered, eyes glinting, and peered at him around her hand the way Harry had around his shoe.

Harry had to laugh, because the games he and Hermione played with each other were _fun_, now that they were no longer kids in school and taking either Voldemort or their academic reputation deathly seriously. Hermione was the one who had discovered a connection between several magical diseases and the "loose magic" that many wizards and witches trailed around after them, collecting Muggle germs and transforming them. For nearly a month after that first discovery, she had admonished Harry and Ron all the time to finish their casting movements _neatly _instead of just letting them trail off into big sloppy gestures, and speak their incantations clearly instead of muttering them. Otherwise, the magic would linger around a wizard's body and make them more likely to get sick.

Now, she was past that stage, and Harry enjoyed teasing her about it. And being teased back.

"Not a huge problem," Harry said, and sipped from his tea again before he put his mug down on the table in front of him. "But the Bard did come through the wards last night, and tried to attack Narcissa Malfoy."

Hermione opened her mouth, then sat up straight. "You said _tried_."

Harry nodded. "Well, I suppose I should say that the attack _did _happen, but she survived, and the Bard faltered for some unknown reason." He bent down beside him and picked up the blood-splattered Transfigured shawl. "I wondered if you could take a look at this and tell me about any spells lingering on it."

Hermione drew her wand and cast a spell that surrounded the shawl with a silvery orb of power. Hermione exclaimed softly, and then sank into a wide-eyed trance, gaze locked on the shawl and never deviating.

Harry smiled. Hermione had been invited to join the Unspeakables, but she had ended up in a unique position, floating between them, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and the Ministry legal departments. She did plenty of legal work, but also spell creation, theory research, and investigation of artifacts deemed Light enough to leave the protective custody of the Department of Mysteries.

And right now, Harry trusted her more than any other to tell him about what evidence the Bard might have left behind.

"There is strength here," Hermione whispered. "Loose magic. It's just unlike any kind of magic I've seen before."

Harry shook his head, both amused and dismayed. At least that gave them a _good _reason none of them had been able to capture the Bard before, but it didn't exactly promise reassurance about whether they would be able to do so in the future. "What's different about it?"

Hermione shot him an uncertain glance. "It's going to be hard to explain to someone whose magical theory background isn't up to par."

Harry propped his chin on his hand and gave her a dangerous smile. "Try me."

"All right," said Hermione, and her eyes were challenging right back. "The magic here is a lot looser than normal. Whoever cast this spell was trying to turn the shawl not just into a handkerchief, but also a murder weapon. That's why there's blood. They were doing a Transfiguration that wasn't complete yet. This wasn't suffocation. I think they were trying to turn Mrs. Malfoy herself into blood."

Harry shuddered. That was how one of the Bard's earlier victims had died, transformed into blood that had melted into the bed. At least that confirmed it _was_ more likely to be the Bard, and not some other kind of danger. "But they're a sloppy caster?"

"They have to be, if the magic is that loose," said Hermione and shook her head. "Except with Transfiguration. Transfiguration is tighter. The weaves are bound around the body or object, and rotate it, and make—"

Harry let a few sentences wash over him. Then he said, "Is the looseness the only unusual thing?"

"No," said Hermione, and she was _really _frowning now. "It feels like the Bard's been dabbling in ice magic. There's a kind of signature, here, that you only get with that magic." She laid her palm on the side of the Transfigured shawl. "But on the other hand, that magic is fleeting except in arctic environments, because ice does melt. Most of the time, someone could cast a powerful ice spell and then move on to casting something else weaker, and that other spell would completely obscure the ice signature." She looked hesitantly at Harry.

Harry sat up. "Lucius Malfoy died because he was Transfigured into an ice statue that melted. And the Bard's signature on the wall was in ice."

"That could have been enough, maybe," Hermione hedged. "But that would depend on the person not casting any magic since then, and surely they'd have to use magic to get through your wards and Transfigure the shawl…"

"You have an idea," said Harry, narrowing his eyes at her. "Spit it out."

"It's not something that I'm trying to keep from you because I think you wouldn't react well," said Hermione.

Harry nodded, appeased. He and Hermione had gone through a period like that immediately after Hermione had been offered the Unspeakable job, and Harry had finally had to make it clear that he would rather know the truth even if it was uncomfortable or seemingly immoral. He trusted Hermione. He knew she wouldn't do anything without excellent reasons. He had to know the reasons if he wanted to argue with her, or agree.

"I think it's possible this is a magical, animated curse, instead of a person," said Hermione, and leaned towards him when Harry opened his mouth. Since he wasn't even sure what he was going to say, Harry relaxed and listened. "It would explain a lot of things. The curse isn't affected by wards because the wards are meant to keep _people_ out, or at least magical creatures. It strikes viciously and without mercy because it can't feel any."

"But it would still depend on someone casting the curse," Harry said. He remembered, vaguely, learning about curses that had got detached from an object and wandered around attacking people in his first year of Auror training, but they always struck randomly or hit anyone who came into a certain place. "This is too focused. It only strikes Death Eaters and other people on Voldemort's side who were at the Battle of Hogwarts."

"I know," said Hermione. "But I'm saying that that person who cast it isn't the one who's kept it going now. Maybe that person is in St. Mungo's, catatonic. Maybe they were wounded in the battle and later died of their wounds. Or maybe it's someone who made it happen through accidental magic and doesn't even remember now what they wished for."

Harry considered that, frowning. It was true that accidental magic could accomplish some amazing things. He knew, now, how rare it was to Apparate when a magical child was still as young as he'd been when he did it, and blowing up his aunt was something he didn't think he could do _now_. But something still rang wrong about the theory to him.

"The deaths are so deliberate," he said. "So varied. I'd find it easier to believe it was a curse if all the deaths were the same."

"Well, let me take the shawl with me and I might be able to answer more of your questions," Hermione said, reaching out and gathering it up. "At least, there are artifacts in the Department that can read magical signatures more precisely than I can. Maybe they'll be able to sense something on it besides the ice magic."

"All right," said Harry, and sat back and watched Hermione stand with a sigh. "Working too hard?"

"It was a long night," Hermione admitted. "One of those things you're not supposed to know about got out of its cage."

"Then go home and rest first," said Harry.

Hermione eyed him. "It's not that urgent even though you had an attack here last night?"

"I want you to be rested so you're not making mistakes," Harry said, standing up and coming around the table to hug her. "That's the urgent thing right now."

* * *

><p><em>There's no way that Potter will listen to me about my suspicions, not when he trusts her that disgustingly much.<em>

Draco could feel his hands digging into the wall behind him, but that still hurt less than the smile he saw on Granger's face as she stepped away from Potter and made some light joke, heading towards the door. Potter laughed and waved after her, and stood there smiling until the door shut. Then he began moving around the table, gathering up the remains of his breakfast. And hers.

_Did he not want me to know she was here? _Draco put up his back and advanced slowly down the staircase. He would act ignorant if he had to, but at the moment, keeping Potter from suspecting the secrets _Draco _held was even more urgent.

"Good morning, Malfoy," Potter said when Draco's foot was an inch from the bottom of the last step.

Draco froze for a second, wondering if Potter had known he was there all along, or had only heard him when he came down the last few creaky stairs. But as long as Draco didn't have to refer directly to Granger, he wouldn't. "Good morning," he said stiffly, and walked around the kitchen table to pick up a cup for himself. He would cast some subtle detection spells on it, to make sure that Granger hadn't left poison behind. "I thought you were going to stay in the room with us during the night?"

"I did," said Potter, and gave him a baffled look. "Did you not sense me?"

"I mean you weren't there when I woke up this morning," said Draco, wondering how Potter had already managed to wrongfoot him. "And if the Bard had attacked again, you wouldn't have been there to save us."

Potter gave him a thin smile. "I stayed awake the rest of the night, with a spell called the Constant Vigilance Curse." He went on before Draco could ask why he would cast a curse on himself. "And I added something else to the wards."

"Like the other thing you added that stood us in such good stead?" Draco sneered.

Potter only blinked gravely at him. "This particular addition will warn me every time something crosses the wards."

Draco frowned in thought. "Including—"

"Anything alive," said Potter. "Including birds and insects. It's good that the Constant Vigilance Curse won't let me sleep anyway." He began to run hot water into the cups in the sink, keeping his back turned to Draco as if he didn't want to meet his eyes and see the suspicion of Granger there.

_But I haven't said anything about it yet, so he can't know I feel it. Unless he suspects Granger himself. _Draco was also confident that Potter couldn't have read anything accidentally out of his head, either. Potter had never been _that _good with Legilimency, from what Professor Snape had told Draco.

"Why do you call a spell that you're using to defend us a curse?" Draco cast a small detection spell on the sausages that waited under a smoldering Warming Charm. The house-elf had probably made them, but still.

"Because when it's cast on someone without Auror training, they start and leap at every sound," said Potter easily. "It won't let them sleep. It can drive them mad, or at least to hallucinations." He turned around from the sink and smiled at Draco. "When someone with Auror training uses it, it works more like a charm that sharpens their senses, and it simply means that they won't fall asleep on the job."

_As long as they stay in the same room as the job, _Draco thought, and decided that he might as well approach one problem directly. "If the Bard doesn't cross the wards, though, what good will the spell do?"

"Well, now," Potter said, and nodded his head at Draco's breakfast. "If you want to finish eating and then wake your mother and have her come with us, there are some things I want to test. And show you."

Draco nearly choked, he inhaled the food so fast.

* * *

><p>"I wish to know what you will show us," said Narcissa, in that pale silvery voice Harry was already growing used to from her.<p>

"Yeah, I should," Harry said, and turned his hand palm upwards. When he thought about it, the silvery fire flickered there. He saw Malfoy move away from it out of the corner of his eye. Harry shrugged at him. "It's not like I asked for or wanted this kind of magic, really."

"Are you ever going to tell us what it _is_?" Malfoy's voice was a little shrill, and he kept his eyes locked on Harry's hand.

"It's something I put up around the wards in hope that it would help keep the Bard away," Harry said, and frowned at the wards again. As far as he could tell, they hadn't been disturbed at all. That meant he would have to look at the sympathetic magic theory and how the Bard could have sneaked something inside his house.

_It had to have come with the Malfoys._

Harry kept his face neutral, though, because while he thought he might persuade them to part with their clothes and so on, he didn't know how he would persuade them to get rid of the keepsakes of Lucius, and said, "Watch."

The silvery fire bubbled up when he called on it, ringing the wards with a glistening, flickering radiance. Harry separated his hands and clenched them, and the fire dived down and wove in and out of the wards. Malfoy was watching with an open mouth. Narcissa looked as unimpressed as she always did. Harry had to admit that both reactions gave him a faint satisfaction.

He finally called the silver fire back into him, grimacing at the slightly unpleasant taste on his lips as it branded its way into his mouth, and said, "This is a power that's based on—well, on protection of Slytherins. I didn't think it would let anything cross the wards that wanted to harm one. So we're left with the chance that the Bard didn't cross the wards. But I want you to help me look at them and make sure of that."

"What _is _it?" Malfoy whispered. "How did you get something intended for the protection of Slytherins?"

Harry sighed. "When Snape died, I was there. He gave me some memories I had to have, memories that let me defeat Voldemort." Malfoy forgot to flinch at the name, so intently was he watching Harry. "I watched the memories, and I thought that was it. But I'd touched the memories in their raw form, either when they came out of Snape or when I put them into the Pensieve, I don't know which one. So I found myself with the ability to use this magic, sometimes. Only when it concerns the protection of Slytherins, really, or if I'm in absolute peril and something's taken my wand away."

"I've never heard of that," Malfoy said, and acted as if he was trying to stare a hole through Harry.

Harry shrugged. "Neither had the Healers at St. Mungo's. And it was a long time before I understood what I had. The way I got to your room so fast last night? This." He held up one hand, and there was a sullen spark of silver fire for a moment before it died. "But it only functioned that way because I was trying to protect you."

"Or if you were in danger of dying," Malfoy said. "Why? What kind of fondness did Snape hold for you, that his memories would protect you that way?"

Harry stared at Malfoy in silence, and said nothing. That had been Snape's secret, his vow and his fondness for Lily. He'd had to give it to Harry, but Harry could at least ensure that it went no further.

After a moment, Malfoy seemed to realize he wouldn't get anything else out of Harry. He turned a stiff, offended little shoulder and looked around at the wards. "You want to know how to strengthen them?"

"I want you to recognize places in them that I might not see, thanks to my lack of Black blood," said Harry, and nodded to Narcissa. "And if there's anything else you can tell me, useful tricks, then of course you can add those as well."

Narcissa stood a little taller, slipping a different shawl down from her shoulders. "I can certainly do that."

Harry relaxed. He hoped that this collaboration would help to make them feel they were doing something useful as well as strengthen the wards.

And, when they were done with it, maybe they would feel comfortable enough around him to listen when Harry asked them to send those little keepsakes of Lucius back to the Manor, just in case they were tainted.


	7. Repairing Holes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—Repairing Holes_

The morning had been—tolerable, Draco had to allow. Potter had escorted them around his wards, letting his mother recognize blood protections and point out things that could be fixed. He had smiled and nodded at Draco, instead of getting upset at him, when Draco questioned the previous strength of his wards.

"Yes, they really weren't enough," he'd agreed, taking a step back and critically surveying the shimmering stack of lines around the house. "I thought the addition of the silver fire would be enough, but with the Bard inside the wards…" He shrugged.

"Then I don't understand," said Draco, and kept his voice as casual as he could, because his mother was looking sternly at him and wouldn't forgive him if Draco messed this up. "Why are you bothering to strengthen the wards if the Bard can just get inside them?"

Potter nodded to him again. "I'm planning something that I hope will shove the Bard back outside the wards and force him to respect them."

Draco licked his lips. "What is that?" Last night, he had been almost hopeless. He didn't know why he had awakened and managed to save his mother, but he couldn't attribute it to any slip-up on the Bard's part when he _didn't _know.

"We need to make some tests," said Potter, and sighed and set his shoulders. "Come on, let's talk about this back inside the wards. There might be spies for the Bard that could listen in." He hesitated, then added, "He's either part of the Muggleborn Legion, or has spies inside their walls, I'm certain."

Draco blinked and followed him. "How do you know _that_?" he demanded, the instant they were inside.

"Don't be impatient, Draco darling," his mother murmured as she took a seat on the other side of the table and looked at Potter critically. The house-elf popped up and put a cup of tea in front of her. Narcissa didn't acknowledge the service, and the elf bowed in what looked like ecstasy and vanished again. "I think Auror Potter is just about to explain."

"Yes." Potter nodded at her and looked at both of them until Draco sat down with a resigned sigh. Then Potter _did _get on with the explanation. "A member of the Muggleborn Legion came to visit me yesterday, claiming that one of his people had vanished and that she must be the one responsible for the Bard attacks. The timing is beyond suspicious."

"But the Aurors believed his story, of course," Draco said, because that was how his luck would run.

Potter speared him with a single glance. "They believed it enough to look for this Tatyana Kingston he claimed had disappeared. But there's no trace of her, and so we're sure that she's a distraction at worst, a Bard ally but not the Bard herself at best."

Draco looked his mother and mouthed the name "Tatyana Kingston," but she only shook her head. Draco hadn't expected her to have familiarity with a Muggleborn name if he didn't himself, but it was still a disappointment.

"What do you think you can do to prevent a Bard attack?" he asked, and turned back to Potter.

Potter studied them for a second, and Draco restrained his mouth. He didn't think Potter was being deliberately provocative. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, and Merlin _knew _that would be a long process, Draco thought.

His mother gave him a light frown, as if sensing the tendency of his thoughts. Draco shrugged at her, unapologetic. He had to put up with Potter somehow, and that meant teasing in his mind if he couldn't do it aloud.

"It's beyond unusual that the Bard didn't finish the attack," Potter began. "It's at least a hopeful sign that, once we moved you here, he couldn't attack as well." He hesitated again, then said, "The only thing that really changed beyond your arrival was the arrival of your keepsakes."

It took Draco a moment to understand what he meant, and in the meantime, his mother had already understood. She stood up with a hiss. "How _dare _you say that I should destroy the mementos of my husband," she said, and then she choked and sat back down, drawing one corner of her new shawl up to wipe her eyes.

"No," said Potter quietly. "I'm not saying that. I want you to send the photographs and so on back to the Manor." He hesitated, then added, "I think the Bard would be more likely to enter through an image of his victim than through your clothes or—or your toothbrushes, but I would send those back as well."

"So he can go into our house and be waiting for us when we go back?" Draco asked viciously. "Oh, yes, Potter, marvelous plan."

"_Listen_." Potter spun back around to face him, and Draco had to admit a certain admirable quality about him when his face was ignited like this. "We already know the Bard has access to the Manor. For whatever reason, his attack was different here, and your mum survived. If we can experiment a little, then maybe we can finally trap him, or at least make sure that he can't hurt you while you're here."

Draco frowned. He had to admit that that suggestion had merit, which was all the more reason for disliking it. "What kind of experiments are you talking about?"

"I'm going to add wards of silver fire in the rooms themselves," said Potter, and darted a glance at Draco's mother. "With your permission, I'd like to keep one image of Lucius and ward it. To see what happens if the Bard tries to make another entrance."

"You will not destroy it," said his mother, and she didn't rise, but the white-knuckled grip of her hands on the arms of her chair were enough warning of what would happen to Potter if he did, Draco thought.

"Of course not." Potter stared at her as though she was the one suggesting mad theories of impossible magic, not him.

Narcissa struggled for a second. Then she inclined her head. "I have a photograph that you can ward."

"Yes," said Draco quietly. "I think it's a good idea."

Potter shot him a quick look. Draco held his eyes and said nothing. It was true that he wanted to pick at Potter; that his father had only died yesterday; that he didn't think Potter was taking this seriously enough, when the Bard had also attacked them in the house that was supposed to be their best sanctuary.

But he appreciated Potter was doing all he could. Even the best Auror in the business couldn't do much to arrest someone who could apparently appear and disappear through keepsakes, and play some sort of game with wards. Draco lowered his head and let out a long, slow, shaking breath.

He could acknowledge that. He didn't have to like it.

* * *

><p>Harry stepped back and slowly nodded. The photograph of Lucius, the only one not sent back to the Manor, was covered with crawling networks of silver fire now. Snape's legacy to him hummed and crackled more vigilantly than ever. Harry sometimes thought, uneasily, that a bit of Snape's memories lingered in it, and approved when Harry was trying something new and innovative to protect Slytherins.<p>

Or perhaps it only picked up on his own urgency, which was certainly deep enough.

Harry curled his fingers into his palm and hissed a little. It seemed impossible that the Bard could have come through a photograph in the first place. And it didn't answer the other questions Harry had about the Bard's other attacks. There had been kill sites without images of the victim in them, and others that had only portraits. A few of the Death Eaters had died outside, or in temporary but heavily warded safehouses. How in the world could the Bard have a link to every _one _of those places? It was one of the many mysteries to how the Bard operated.

_And a question I won't solve right now, _Harry thought, as he turned around and found Malfoy standing in the doorway of the spare room behind him. Malfoy nodded to him with the distant expression on his face that Harry knew meant he was going to make trouble.

"We will need new clothes to replace the ones we are sending back to the Manor," said Malfoy, and raised his head haughtily when Harry looked at him, as if thinking Harry would dispute that. "Even the ones that we're wearing now, since we also brought them, and the ones we wore yesterday, since both of us were in the room where my father died." For a moment, his voice broke, and he looked away.

Harry would have been content to remain in silence for a moment, to let Malfoy take his time to recover his poise, but Malfoy had it back as if he had never lost it. He plucked at the shirt he wore. "Unless you want us both naked, of course," he added.

Harry's breath caught a little as he thought about Malfoy naked. Narcissa wasn't in his mind at all; he just blinked at Malfoy and _thought_, and there was a glow to the image that he hadn't seen in a while.

Then Malfoy turned and glared at him again, and ruined the glow. No, Harry was being an idiot. Malfoy would never—he would be insulted if he knew the barest glimpse of what Harry was thinking. Harry nodded. "Then I'll summon Grimstone and Adbar. They'll accompany me as we take you to Diagon Alley."

Malfoy sneered. "You think that all the clothes shops we want to patronize are in Diagon Alley?"

"Well, where are they, then?" Harry asked, thinking there must be some secret hidden wizarding village that was all shops and swaggering pure-bloods.

"In Knockturn Alley."

Harry froze for the briefest second. Then he shook his head. "No, Malfoy. Are you insane? The Bard must have allies—he has to, to manage some of the devices that probably let him get in—and they're probably _all over_ Knockturn Alley."

"You don't know that." Malfoy was smiling, but in a way that made his eyes gleam like steel instead of simply shining. "After all, I know the Lestranges died far away from all centers of civilization." He looked straight at Harry. "We need clothes. That's not under dispute. And the shops of Diagon Alley do not have what we require. That is also not in dispute."

"Yes, it bloody is!" Harry crowded a little closer. Malfoy only stood his ground and didn't retreat, which Harry had to admit was unexpected—and bloody inconvenient. "Can't you just shop at Madam Malkin's?"

He sounded a little desperate, and from the small, satisfied curve of Malfoy's smile, he knew it. "No. She doesn't have our measurements. We would have to spend hours, perhaps a full day, out in order to have the clothes made. And have you forgotten that there are perhaps as many dangers in Diagon Alley as in Knockturn? There are people there sympathetic to the Bard. In fact, they may be more plentiful in the 'Lighter' areas than in the Darker ones."

Harry rubbed his forehead and the headache forming behind his scar. Malfoy laughed. "Come on, Potter. You knew that we would need clothes."

"Yes, but I thought that you would go to _normal _shops," Harry muttered, his mind racing. He couldn't take an Auror escort along into Knockturn Alley. The place survived based on treaties with the Ministry that Harry didn't know about and wanted to destroy, but he didn't have the power to do that. And right now, the survival of the Malfoys was what he had to consider, not why the Ministry put up with all that corruption a few miles from its doorstep.

No, an Auror escort would signal the end of the truce for some people, and would certainly draw fire. But how could he keep the Malfoys safe in the middle of a swarming crowd of Dark wizards, warlocks, hags, and black apothecaries?

A second later, Harry started to grin in spite of himself. The same way he had kept them safe, or tried, from an enemy that was deadlier than anything he had ever faced. He would need a disguise, but in the middle of Knockturn Alley, that was a given. Harry Potter wouldn't be able to get more than a step without someone casting a curse at him.

Harry knew what disguise he would use, too.

"You've seen sense?" Malfoy sounded somewhere between delighted and disgruntled.

Harry turned and gave him a sweet smile. "You could say that. For the moment, the biggest problem will be making sure that you have enough Galleons to look like you belong with _me, _instead of the other way around."

* * *

><p>Draco wanted to sneer, but he didn't, because that would mean Potter had too much attention from him.<p>

Of course, he also wanted to gape, because the figure who had met him and his mother at the bottom of the stairs in the drawing room was very different from the one that Draco had last seen ducking into the bathroom. But not different in an _impressive _way, Draco reassured himself hastily. In fact, he was fighting to hold in laughter, not a gasp.

Really.

Potter had somehow become almost a foot taller, and he wore a tall hat that was pointed in a severe way. Draco had only seen the equal on McGonagall. He also wore a long black cloak that draped over his shoulders and entirely hid whatever apparatus he was using to achieve the extra height. His hair had gone silver and thin, and his eyes were blue and fixed straight ahead. He nodded to Draco and Narcissa without looking at them and moved towards the door. Draco wondered if it would be hard for him to turn his head, and suspected it would.

Which, of course, made Draco wonder why in the world he had adopted this disguise, when it would only lead to someone slaughtering him when they came up and he couldn't spin around to hold his wand. Or, more to the point, it would lead to someone slaughtering Draco and Narcissa.

"This is the best disguise you could imagine?" he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as they stepped into the garden.

Potter's eyes turned sideways and gave him a steady, aloof stare. "This disguise of mine has a reputation in Knockturn Alley," he said, and his voice was a little high-pitched and had a different accent. Draco blinked, not able to lie to himself now about being impressed. "As someone who is bad to cross."

Draco considered that, then nodded. "I never meant to go without glamours, you know," he reminded Potter. "Only in the shop will Mother and I have to appear as ourselves, because Madam Royal doesn't see anyone with glamours on." It was caution and good sense in a place like Knockturn, but also practical, when it came to her business, Draco knew. She couldn't take accurate measurements or choose good colors if she couldn't see someone's real face or height.

"Then put them on," said Potter, and his eyes rolled back to staring into the distance.

Bristling a little, Draco did. He had grown practiced at appearing as a nameless Muggleborn during the war when the Dark Lord had sometimes sent him on "scouting" missions—useless in reality—into Muggle areas. His spell combined features of several Muggleborn students he had known at Hogwarts: that one's weak chin, this one's brown bristles. He knew the spell by heart, still.

His mother had done much the same thing when Draco turned to look at her, above all hiding her distinctive blond hair and delicately Black features. She looked like a Muggle matron with an elevated nose and upper lip.

"Good," said Potter, although Draco didn't know exactly how he had swiveled his eyes to see their new appearances. "Now, follow close behind me. Leonis Klein has followers, not companions."

And he strode away. Draco listened hard this time, and was sure that he heard a creaking. He shook his head. That was riskier than if Potter had used illusions to achieve his new height. Someone would probably notice.

On the other hand…

Draco had to smile a little. Who would care enough to refer to it openly in Knockturn Alley, that center of illusion, deception, and supposedly miraculous cures? Of course Potter's disguise would only work there, and not in an open area like Diagon Alley, where, especially since the war, more people were wont to comment on unusual things in case they were signs of a new Dark wizard attack.

Yes, Potter had chosen his disguise well. And for it to have an established reputation and name, he had been in Knockturn Alley more than once. It wasn't just size that would keep someone safe there, either. Potter had contacts. Influence.

Draco followed him obediently, his eyes on Potter's back. The black cloak flapped and swayed arrogantly.

Potter would never be Draco's favorite person, but he thought he could get to like this new version.


	8. Expedition to Knockturn Alley

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Expedition to Knockturn Alley_

Knockturn Alley looked exactly the same as it always did.

After a frozen moment, Draco could shake his head and tell himself that of course it did. Even if people here would consider Lucius Malfoy's death news worth paying attention to, it had been years since Lucius had had any business interests in the alley. And Draco had kept away from investing in businesses here as well, on his father's advice. He had told Draco that Aurors were looking eagerly into all sorts of things the Malfoy family did right now, and even businesses that plenty of "Light" wizards earned profits from would be considered grounds for arrest.

But in the future, when people's memories, never long, had begun to fade, then…

Draco choked abruptly. That sudden thought had hit him like a body blow, that his father was never going to get anything done in the future.

Narcissa reached out and gripped his hand without saying anything. Draco kept his gaze fixed ahead. Part of was that was for the same reason he wouldn't come into Knockturn Alley wearing his own face. Never show weakness in the domain of Dark wizards, no matter what happened.

But the other was that he didn't want to see her wearing her fake face right now. He wanted to imagine that she looked like herself, and imagine his father the way he had looked when alive, too, not as he had looked when melting into the bed.

_We are going to find the person who did that to him._

And maybe Potter's resolution to help would bear fruit. Draco nodded and decided to think, for the moment, that it would. He straightened up and looked ahead and kept walking, dropping his mother's hand as soon as he could. That was another sign of weakness. There were warlocks, hags, and wizards here who would strike at them for sheer spite if they saw that, on the idle thought that one of them losing the other would hurt.

But they were going to persevere through this, and they were going to trap the Bard, or at least stop him from entering the house. Potter's wards were going to work.

They had to.

The shop Malfoy and Narcissa apparently patronized was a small thing, so small that Harry had to stoop to get in the door. He wondered why this dim place had appealed to people who had enough money to get anything they wanted. How they had discovered it, why they wanted to continue to come here, and several other things.

But once he was inside and had managed to lift his stooped head, he didn't wonder any longer.

The inside of the shop remained dim even when Harry cast a subtle spell that would let him see through magical shadows and darkness in case they were concealing traps, but it was the sort of warm, comfortable dimness that reminded Harry of some of the muted red and gold of the Gryffindor common room. There were two fireplaces, one on either side of the shop, which sloped back and around much further than Harry had thought it did. It looked as if the back of the shop might run up almost to the border that Knockturn Alley shared with Diagon.

"Ah. Mr. Leonis Klein?"

Harry knew he had never been here before, but his disguise had a reputation. He managed a rattling bow to the dark-haired woman with brown skin and calm dark eyes who had come out from behind a low curtain of blue cloth. "Yes. I am here for my companions, however, and not for myself." And he took a stiff step to the side, carefully manipulating the contraption of bone and iron that disguised his height, and waited for the Malfoys to remove their glamours.

They were already gone, he realized a second later. Harry concealed a sigh. He would just have to hope they hadn't actually taken them off in the street.

Madam Royal, if that was her, didn't appear surprised to see their pale faces appearing. She only nodded and said, "Then you will want mourning robes?"

Malfoy's face was pink when Harry glanced at him, and Harry didn't think it was only strange shadows cast by the appearance of the fire. "Yes," he said in a clipped tone. "And cloaks, undergarments, shirts, trousers, plain robes, and socks." He glanced at his mother.

"A gown," said Narcissa. "Rather than trousers. But the other things my son mentioned, as well." She looked completely calm. Harry wondered how much that was feigned, and how much she had learned about such feigning when Voldemort was in the Manor. _Probably a lot_, he thought, and felt a squeeze of pity at his heart.

"Then you will spend most of the day here," said Madam Royal, and turned to Harry. "I can fit you as well, Mr. Klein."

"I will wait," said Harry, and leaned against the wall. That took some of the weight off his contraption and feet and let him rest his back.

Royal only paused as though she would argue, and then nodded and said, "Ah," without blinking. She led Malfoy and his mum into the back of the shop, and let the curtain fall shut behind them.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. On the one hand, he didn't like letting the people he was guarding out of his sight. On the other, he had no particular desire to see them naked or half-naked, either. At least the contraption he wore had its own advantages to fighting if they were attacked here.

He turned his gaze back to a point halfway between the curtain and the street, and waited.

* * *

><p>"You would look charmingly in this robe."<p>

Madam Royal never ordered someone else, Draco thought as he took the grey-blue robe from her. She only made pronouncements and observations, and it was up to someone else to obey them or not. She would sell them unflattering robes, if they wanted them, without turning a hair. And then somehow contrive to spread rumors that would reach all her regular customers and let them know that it wasn't _her _bad taste that had led to people parading around like that.

Right now, he was looking for a mourning robe. And Draco wasn't even sure when the funeral was, because the Aurors were still swarming over the Manor and the bed where his father had died, from what Potter said. No telling when they would be done.

_Don't think about it right now, _Draco ordered himself, and confined his thoughts to what he could see from his reflection in the mirror. He turned his head back and forth slowly, admiring what he _did _see there. His hair was perfect, certainly, and the robes made his skin look pale but with a pearly glow beneath it, instead of the washed-out color Draco had been afraid he would see.

Draco nodded slowly, and turned back to face Madam Royal with his mouth open. Right now, she was debating with his mother over a robe by doing nothing more than turning the silky thing back and forth in front of Narcissa and gravely, silently challenging her to refuse it. From the way his mother's eyes and mouth set, Draco knew she _thought _she should, but would probably weaken easily enough.

Then Draco felt a cold wind on his cheek, and purely on instinct he snapped his head to the side and dropped to the ground.

The wind skated past him, and Draco leaped up in time to see the mirror crack and splinter. There was a growth of crystal on it, as thought someone had flung a web of crystal that would stick there.

Something that didn't quite have a form, that felt like a wind, leaped off the center of that crystal and made its way straight at Draco.

And then Potter was there, leaping in with an enormous bound of his disguised legs, planting himself in between Draco and the invisible force, and raising a shield of more of that fire Draco had seen him add to the wards. This time, the fire drew itself in and rolled around and clung to the unseen thing, covering it like the crystal covered the center of the mirror, and dragged it to the ground. The sounds of a furious struggle, full of snarls and growls, came from the center of the fire. Draco stared, shaken, and Potter turned around and gathered him close with one arm, calling out a spell Draco didn't know.

There was another shrieking snarl from behind them, and at the same moment, Draco, who couldn't see what was happening there _anyway _because Potter had his arm around Draco and had turned him towards his mother, saw his mother reach out a hand towards him, her mouth moving in words that Draco couldn't hear.

Then a shield of fire formed around her, and Draco felt another cold bite in the air next to his cheek.

He struck out, wildly, lashing with one arm, and Potter cursed and dragged him even closer. Draco almost thought that would have helped if he had felt an ordinary chest behind him, instead of the straps of wood and iron that Potter had bound around him. It answered the question of how he had got so much taller, at least.

But that wasn't the question Draco was really concerned with right now, so much as the question of whether he would _survive_.

The snarls were quieting down, but Draco could still only see the cloth of Potter's ridiculous cloak and robes when he turned his head. He struggled with one hand, scuffling at the air, and found Potter hissing at him to be quiet. It _did _sound like a real hiss, in Parseltongue, although Draco knew he couldn't have understood that language. But it did an effective job of getting him to be quiet.

Then there was one more wailing noise, and the silver fire came back and draped itself around Potter's head and shoulders. And the sense of an attacker, of the Bard, was gone.

Draco assumed that, anyway, because the next second Potter was moving away from him, creaking towards the sacred back of the shop, behind a red curtain, where not even Draco had ever been invited. He knew that Madam Royal kept certain tricks of her trade there she didn't want anyone to know about. And he wasn't surprised when she moved towards Potter, her head uplifted and her arms spread and her hair rising a little behind her in the wake of some protective magic.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Klein," she said. "But you cannot go back there."

"The Bard of Morning's Hope just escaped out the back of your shop," said Potter roughly, in his own voice, and for the first time ever, Draco saw Madam Royal startled. "I bloody well have to look and find out where he went, and how he got _in _in the first place."

Madam Royal considered it visibly, and then she nodded and said, "Very well. But I will go with you, to make sure you don't disturb anything."

Impatiently, Potter nodded, and she pulled the curtain back enough for him to duck through. Draco took a long, slow breath and moved across to his mother. The fire had faded around her enough for him to touch her. Narcissa laid one shaking hand on his shoulder and looked closely into his face.

"Are you all right?" she breathed.

"Yes," said Draco. He wanted to say he should be, after the way Potter had hugged him, but that sounded weirdly intimate, and anyway, he doubted it would have satisfied his mother. He stood patiently still and let her look him over, running her hands up and down his sides as if she was looking for cracked ribs. Well, maybe it would be likely, from Potter's embrace.

"Good," said Narcissa at last, and stepped away from him, frowning. "Did you notice something?"

Draco tensed. "What?" If it was something that proved Potter or Madam Royal was in league with the Bard, then he hadn't. And he wondered how wise it would be to stay here, if either of them was.

"The Bard's attack only focused on you this time. Not me." Narcissa twisted her fingers together and looked at him solemnly. "It makes me wonder if the only way I survived is because the Bard realized his attack was directed at the wrong person."

"Why would it be?" Draco asked, but then looked at her left arm. Of course. She didn't carry the Dark Mark. And while not every one of the Bard's victims did, all of them had fought actively at the Battle of Hogwarts. His mother hadn't. She had stayed out of the way, and never cast a single curse. Draco knew his father had, if only in self-defense.

"It's a clue, maybe," said Draco, and then shook his head. "But if the Bard is so selective in his choice of victims, why did he attack you at all?"

"That, I don't know." Narcissa smoothed her skirts down and gave Draco a narrow look. "It's a mystery."

_One I'm heartily tired of, _Draco thought, turning to stare again at the back curtain of the shop, _and would like to solve._

* * *

><p>Harry puttered around the back of the shop. He had to admit it was neat, much neater than the corresponding space in Madam Malkin's, where he'd spent time both to be fitted for his own robes and when a few crimes had occurred there. There were no huge, towering piles of cloth here, only neat shelves that rose from the floor like bookshelves and contained bolts of cloth and the finished products.<p>

Harry knew there had to be some reason the Bard had come from this direction, though. And he wasn't prone to giving up, the way that he knew some Aurors in this situation would have, declaring the case unsolvable and reporting directly to the Ministry so they could take over. He had to find something. He moved behind the shelves, and Madam Royal followed him at once, saying, "It's only my workroom."

It did look like that, Harry had to admit, just a simple room with a table and scissors and measuring instruments and what looked like one of the silver things that had sat on Dumbledore's desk before Harry destroyed it in fifth year. Harry paused, then moved closer.

The instrument wasn't the same, though, he saw almost at once. It had an obvious purpose, balanced scales that would dip beneath different kinds of cloth. Disappointed, Harry drew back and looked around again.

There was a teakettle. There was a door out into Diagon Alley, but when Harry cast a spell known only to Aurors that would tell him how much time had passed since it was open, the answer came back as five hours. There was a photograph of a lovely woman who looked a lot like Madam Royal, except taller. She smiled and waved when she saw Harry looking.

"That's my Mariana, who flirts with everyone," said Madam Royal, shaking her head. Then she planted her hands on her hips and looked up at Harry. "And I'll thank you to keep your eyes away from her, unless you intend to do something about it."

Harry was startled into laughing. "How can I? When she's not here and I am?"

"And she's in Brazil, anyway," Madam Royal agreed, and herded him gently but persistently back to the front of the shop. "Did you find anything that would help?" Her tone said how greatly she doubted that.

Harry took a long, slow breath. He thought he had, but the difficulties of confronting it made him feel ill. On the other hand, so had the theory about the Bard being a hero of the Battle of Hogwarts at first, and he had got over it.

"Maybe," he said, and ignored her surprised expression. "Thank you for letting me look around back here." He started towards the front of the shop.

"It's a small price for the information you've allowed me to have in its place, Mr. Potter."

Harry turned around slowly, because he had to when wearing the contraption that made him into Leonis Klein. "If you don't keep this to yourself, then you would be surprised what I can do," he said softly.

"The information would lose value if I spread it around." Madam Royal spread her hand in a small, deprecating gesture. "And I am here in Knockturn Alley more for the robes made of rare furs that I sell than because of any inherent affinity for other Dark Arts. If you let me have the privilege of measuring you and clothing you, sometimes, then the temptation to ever spread the information at all would fade."

Harry had to snort a little. "You wouldn't want to tell others that you're costuming Harry Potter?"

Madam Royal half-shook her head. "To be indiscreet with any of my clients' information would hurt my business more than it would help." She nodded to a cluster of silver spheres hanging in a corner of the ceiling. "Those collect and measure the magic signatures of those who come in here, and clients with powerful magic can feel the lingering aftereffects of other clients. They would know I was serving a strong wizard. That's the best advertisement I could have."

Harry squinted at the spheres. Now that he listened to them, he could hear the faint interruption in the running ripple of magic all around him, the break in the current. They felt like other devices he had run into that did much the same thing. He thought Madam Royal was probably telling the truth.

"All right," he said. "If it's nothing more than that, you're welcome to it." He turned and creaked back into the front of the shop, where the Malfoys stood up when they saw him. Harry nodded to them. "If you are done?"

They weren't, but Harry stayed with them behind the curtain this time, simply averting his gaze when Malfoy's chest was bared or Narcissa fitted the gown. And then they went out onto the cobblestones again, and Harry got in front of them to lead them out of Knockturn Alley.

"You found something," Malfoy whispered from behind him. "I _know. _You have that look in your eyes."

Harry shrugged. "It could easily be nothing."

And it might. That was what he tried to tell himself. After all, he had only been in the headquarters of the Muggleborn Legion a few times. He didn't even know if Madam Royal was Muggleborn herself.

What he _did _know was that he had last seen a photograph of her daughter Mariana perched on Dennis Creevey's desk.


	9. Too Many Details

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Too Many Details _

"Not interrupting your little chats with Malfoys, am I, mate?"

"Ron!" Harry turned around with a grin on his face. He had expected someone to firecall him to report on the hint he had dropped off with the Aurors last night about Mariana Royal and Dennis's photograph of her. He hadn't known the reporter would be Ron, or that he would come in person.

Ron smiled and shook his hand, while glancing with exaggerated care over Harry's shoulder for Malfoys. Harry shoved him into a chair and sat down next to him, gesturing with his own cup. "Do you want something to eat?" As usual, Kreacher had made a huge meal, and while Harry was keeping it under Warming Charms for Malfoy and Narcissa when they woke up, Ron wouldn't make a huge dent in it.

"No, I've eaten." Ron paused with his hands on the table in front of him. "There's been a complication with Dennis."

Harry nodded, not really surprised. There were always complications there, from Dennis's popularity that wouldn't let Harry arrest him to his relationship to the rest of the Muggleborn Legion and their support of their leader. "What is it?"

Ron hooked his thumbs together and twiddled them. "He said that he would speak about Mariana Royal, but only to you. And that you had to come to him alone, without Auror backup, and without—guests." He met Harry's gaze and twitched one eyebrow, as if Harry wouldn't be able to figure that out himself.

"Yeah, I understand," Harry said, and then met Ron's eyes. "You know the favor I'm going to ask, right?"

Ron sighed slowly. "I understand, but I don't have to like it."

"I would never ask you to _like _it," Harry reassured him. "I just don't trust the Malfoys with anyone else right now. And look at it this way. You can torture them as much as being around them is going to torture you."

Ron's face lit up. "I never thought of it that way! Thanks, mate." He pumped Harry's hand and started to say something else, but Malfoy wandered down the stairs into the kitchen, and Harry got to see the inevitable confrontation a lot sooner than he'd expected.

Malfoy's face was softly flushed, his hair sleep-tousled. Harry blinked. He had thought that Malfoy would be immaculately groomed and glaring at Ron, not turning his head slowly back and forth and blinking as though he could make Ron go away if he shut his eyes fast enough.

Malfoy was kind of cute this way, actually.

Harry snorted to himself. Yes, Malfoy was cute, all right, when he wasn't doing something like insisting on going to a posh clothes shop so he could almost die.

Harry stood up and nodded to Ron. "All right. I'll go interview Dennis, as long as you don't have anything back at the office that needs to be taken care of and you can stay here for a while."

"Count on me." Ron drew his wand and carefully arranged his feet on the table, watching Malfoy. Harry could tell the minute he woke up and really began to notice. His face flushed and his eyes darted back and forth between Ron's boots and the table as if he was waiting for the first scuff-mark to appear. Ron grinned at him.

"Potter promised that _he _would be here to protect us," said Malfoy in glacial accents, and his eyes came back to Harry.

"I did promise that," said Harry, and he knew he was flushing a bit. "But I didn't anticipate this. Someone who could be connected to the Bard—the Muggleborn I told you about who showed up the first day we were here and told me about a missing woman from the Legion—will only speak to me alone."

Malfoy gave him a smile that made him resemble the sneering boy from Hogwarts, if someone had plunked that boy down in the middle of a dangerous situation and made him grow brains. Well, in a way, Harry thought, they _had_. "So you'll go running off to visit someone who could be the Bard the day after you defeated the Bard? How wonderful."

"No one has actually defeated the Bard," Harry pointed out. "I foiled one attack. And with help." Malfoy nodded absently as though remembering Harry's explanation for the silver fire from Snape's memories. "If Creevey's the Bard, then he already knows about it, anyway, so I'm not giving much away."

"Walking into his clutches—"

"Killing Harry would be stupid if he asked him to come visit when other people know where Harry's going," Ron interrupted casually. "And I don't think the Bard is stupid. He's obsessed." He glanced at Malfoy for a minute. "So obsessed, in fact, that he doesn't target people other than the ones that fulfill his specifications. Harry doesn't."

"That doesn't explain the Bard's attack on my mother a few nights ago," Malfoy snapped, turning towards Ron. "And you don't know anything about it, Weasley. So stay out of it."

Ron grinned. "Don't know anything about it? I've been one of the lead Aurors on the case for months."

"Well, I reckon that's why it hasn't been solved yet, then," Malfoy muttered.

Harry winced. He could just imagine how that insult would have ripped Ron out of his chair in seconds if they were back at Hogwarts.

But some people had changed since Hogwarts, and Ron proved he was one of them after a moment of sitting so intensely still that Harry could almost hear his bones creaking with the effort of it. Then he nodded and said, "We all have our opinions, Malfoy," and took out a slip of parchment from his pocket. "This is the Floo address of the Muggleborn Legion," he added, handing it to Harry.

Harry blinked as he looked down at the neatly-written words. They weren't the same as the last address he had visited, when he'd gone to ask Dennis some questions. "They've changed headquarters?"

"Yeah," Ron said, and met and held Harry's gaze, and the silent surmise passed back and forth between them. Harry nodded and walked towards the door to pick up his cloak.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Harry said, and that was as far as he got before someone grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. Harry locked his elbows against his sides and snatched up his wand.

Malfoy was the one who had turned him, though, not some mysterious force of the Bard's power, and he was staring at Harry in a way that made his heart squirm a little. "So you're going to go off and leave us under the care of our worst enemies, is that it?" he whispered. "After specifically promising that you wouldn't do that?"

"I thought the Bard was your worst enemy right now, not the Weasleys," said Harry, and held Malfoy's eyes until he turned his head away a little. "Listen. I know you're grieving. I promise that Ron can be a professional. He'll defend you if the Bard comes back. He's one of the few Aurors I trust to keep his promises and shield you completely. I promise that he has no sympathy for what the Bard has done."

"Some of them do?" Malfoy looked a little sick.

Harry nodded gently. "No one I would ever assign to guard you. They've been pretty open about their sympathies, and I think they're absurd. But please accept that I know what I'm doing, and you can survive a few hours without me."

Malfoy looked away from him as if pondering in his head how long the last few Bard attacks had taken. Then he nodded, still looking away from Harry. "Then go, and get back as soon as you can."

He walked over to the breakfast Kreacher had left. In the meantime, Ron had removed his boots from the table and was watching Malfoy thoughtfully. He made a little "go on" motion when Harry caught his eye, and Harry shrugged and went out the door, making sure he had his cloak slung firmly around his shoulders. He had cast a few defensive enchantments on it that made it his own portable set of wards. That should ease any attack he might suffer from Dennis or other Bard sympathizers.

Harry's mind was already racing, reaching into the future. Why had Dennis asked to talk to Harry, specifically? Was it because he knew Harry had blocked some of the Bard's attacks? Because he thought Harry had the best chance to take the Bard down? Because Harry was the one protecting the Malfoys?

In that case, it did make Harry wonder if he should leave the house and the Malfoys alone. He paused with one hand on the door and turned back.

But Ron was only watching tolerantly as Malfoy ate, and in the almost-supernatural way of best friends, he saw why Harry was hesitating. He made another "go on" motion, and clapped his hand over his heart. A silent promise, Harry knew. He wouldn't let anything happen to Malfoy _or _Narcissa while Harry was gone.

Harry nodded back, and walked over to the Floo connection. He had settled on at least half-a-dozen reasons for why Dennis Creevey might want to see him, but nothing could beat going there and actually finding out.

* * *

><p>Draco kept his back turned to Weasley as he started to eat. He wanted to take the plate back upstairs, but he knew what his mother would say if he woke her from a sound sleep. And he also knew what she would say about him fleeing the kitchen when a Weasley was there, not able to take even that much of one's company.<p>

Not that Draco would think of it as _fleeing. _But when he began thinking of it through his mother's eyes, it was hard to stop.

"How did Harry keep the Bard off you yesterday, anyway?"

Draco twitched. He had thought both he and Weasley would observe the rule of silence, and that could be the way to avoid a duel that would destroy the house. But if one person wouldn't observe it, the other one still could. Draco stood up. He didn't need to go into the bedroom to eat upstairs, of course. He remembered a library that had looked interesting.

"I just wanted to know," said Weasley. "He told me that he did it, but not the details of how. If there's a good weapon against the Bard, then we ought to know about it so we can use it."

Draco turned around. He knew he had a nasty smile, and perhaps later he would feel sorry about it. Right now, he didn't. "What? In other situations, with people who _deserve_ to be protected? Is that what you were going to say?"

Weasley stared at him. "Of course not, Malfoy, stop acting stupid. Even if the Bard is obsessed with you right now, though, there could be other victims any day. And we need to know the weapon. I'm surprised Harry didn't tell me already."

That led Draco to a rush of exhilarating conclusions. Without a doubt, the _best _one was that Potter hadn't told Weasley about the silver fire because it was meant to protect Slytherins, or maybe because of where it came from, and that meant Potter didn't trust Weasley.

Draco was going to reveal the secret, like a good little citizen concerned for people other than himself, and then Weasley might doubt that Potter was a saint. And perhaps he could affect their friendship along with it.

"He used a kind of silver fire," he said, watching Weasley closely. "It surrounded the invisible force that the Bard manifested as, and bound it. He's using the same fire to ward a photograph of my father upstairs."

Weasley's brow had been twitching in confusion that Draco valued, but now, he snorted and waved a hand. "Oh, _that_. Well, it's true that would be of limited use in other situations. He would have to be right on the spot to unleash the fire. And we don't know if the Bard always sends an invisible force to do his dirty work for him."

Draco bit his lip hard in confusion, and then shrugged. It was hard to see why Potter would have kept the secret of the silver fire from Weasley, come to that. "What do you think about the Bard entering the house through my father's photograph?"

"I think it was damn silly to keep it here, if that's the source, or Harry even suspected it was." For a moment, Weasley tapped his fingers on the table, and gazed seriously at Draco. "Why did he?"

"To ward it," said Draco, and did feel a little twist of smugness, because he had just said that, which was a sign that Weasley wasn't paying attention, which was a sign that he wasn't fit to be watching over them.

Granted, Draco would probably have to contemplate that insight as he slid into the dark waters of unconsciousness or death because the Bard had come for him and Potter wasn't here to stop the maniac—but at least knowing he had been right and Potter wrong would give him a bit of satisfaction.

"Well, that makes sense," said Weasley, stealing his satisfaction, and got up to walk behind Draco to the sink. Draco tensed, but Weasley didn't curse him, just calling, "Kreacher!" and starting to give him some instructions.

Draco stared at Weasley's back, because he had to wonder what the fuck was going on here, and then he saw the way Weasley's lips quivered and lifted. _Of course. _Weasley knew that acting as polite as he could would annoy Draco. It was why he had even taken his feet off the table without Draco asking him to. Well. Two could play at that game, and be sitting quietly when Potter came back.

Draco smiled innocently, sat down, folded his arms in front of him on the table, and asked, when Weasley turned around, "How has life been treating you?"

Weasley's dropped jaw was absolutely _priceless_.

* * *

><p>"Thank you for coming to see me, Harry."<p>

Harry raised one eyebrow as he took the chair across from Dennis. It might be true that the Muggleborn Legion had moved their headquarters—though since Harry had come in by Floo, it was hard to be sure of that—but Dennis's office hadn't changed at all from the last time he saw it. It was still a large, grey room, the desk with its chair facing away from the door and into the corner where the large hearth loomed. Photographs and small scrolls hung on the walls, detailing people the Legion wanted to recruit and enemies they planned to fight against. Dennis kept mostly paperwork on the desk, and the photograph that Harry had noticed before. Mariana Royal.

Dennis picked up the picture and handed it to him. Harry turned it around to make sure he hadn't been mistaken, hard to imagine as it was that he would be. No, the same tall dark-skinned woman smiled at him and waved.

"Mariana is a half-blood," said Dennis calmly. "Her father was a Muggle. She understands the prejudice and the need to fight against it better than a lot of half-bloods do."

Harry looked up and held Dennis's eyes as he handed the picture back. "Like me, I suppose you mean."

"You're an Auror," said Dennis quietly. "You believe in these abstract ideals of justice that don't apply much to the real world. When pure-bloods control the justice system, how much leverage do you imagine Muggleborns get to use?"

"I've never let a criminal go because of who they are or who they're related to," Harry said.

"And the cases that actually get to come to trial? The ones that the Wizengamot decides on? The laws that get passed?" Dennis shook his head slowly. "You can't influence the whole of the justice system, Harry. Even though you might come closer than other people, with the power that your name has."

Harry rolled his eyes a little. "You know, I am sympathetic to your cause, but not when you put people in danger because you want greater justice."

"They won't give it to us, so we have to take it," Dennis said simply. He leaned back, watched Harry once more, and then added, "You don't sympathize with the Bard at all? I know that Lucius Malfoy was your enemy, and so was Draco, and yet you put your life in danger to protect them yesterday."

Harry sat very still. Then he drew his wand.

Dennis held up his hands. "I didn't instigate the attack. You could use Veritaserum on me, and it would still be true."

"But you saw something," Harry said quietly. He was thinking of the way that Dennis had showed up at Grimmauld Place long before the officials details of Lucius Malfoy's death had got released. "I want you to come with me, and explain what it is you saw." He added, when Dennis's mouth opened, "Hermione thinks the Bard might just be a roving curse, conjured by someone who wanted revenge on Death Eaters. It would be interesting if that caster was among the Legion, wouldn't it?"

Dennis rolled his eyes and stood up to come around the desk. "You have no idea," he said. "I have tried to give you some clues, like Tatyana's name, but you really have no idea."

Harry nodded grimly. That was enough to take him in for suspicion, if he had been helping or spying for the Bard and had told no one. "Even if they're Death Eater lives, they're still lives," he said, as he bound ropes around Dennis's wrists. "It should be up to the justice system to deal with them, the way they put Lucius in prison for a while. Not you."

"I'm not the one dealing with them," said Dennis, and stared straight ahead at the wall even when Harry walked over to catch his eye. In the end, Harry had to shake his head and take Dennis in without getting the answers right then.

But he did wonder. He wondered about someone who could manage to do the smuggling he _knew _Dennis had done, and fool some seasoned Aurors if not Harry, and who had a photograph on his desk that was the copy of the one hanging in the back of Madam Royal's shop. He had to wonder if someone who was clever enough could conjure the curse when he wanted it, pull it back when he didn't want it, and open doors like this through the help of someone else's magical theory. After all, there were more than a hundred people in the Muggleborn Legion, a lot of them experienced wizards.

No matter that Dennis's own magic wasn't powerful enough for this. His help might be.

_Just one of the things I'm going to find out, _Harry promised himself, and laid a careful, heavy hand on Dennis's shoulder as he escorted him out.


End file.
